


Gilded Scales

by gloomyOptimist, mtjester



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Slaughter Mention, Drugs, Gen, Human Sacrifice Mention, Human Trafficking Mention, Hypnotism, Mind Control, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-02-25 04:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2608223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomyOptimist/pseuds/gloomyOptimist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Town seemed to glitter with a hitherto unseen shimmer now that she had experienced first-hand the ills of Old Town.  The luxurious parlors, the elegant dresses, feasts of the highest quality meats and desserts, motorcars and illuminated avenues, all of it seemed to be an existence made of gold and ivory, pearl and gemstone, a world fashioned from the finest cuts of reality decorated and arranged as perfectly as a dream.  Jane’s life had been nothing but this splendor for years and years, and she had truly noticed none of it.  She breathed it, bathed in it, until only the minor failures of paradise, the occasional fracture in its gilded surface, caught her attention.  She was blinded to the brilliance of her own life.  Now, the fractures she had looked on with such a critical eye seemed nothing compared to the fissure exposing the rot beneath.<br/></p><div class="center">
  <p>"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." --Oscar Wilde</p>
</div><br/>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the gildedstuck AU. Sketches and art from the AU can be found on [gloomy-optimist's blog](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com/tagged/gildedstuck).

**Part 1: Uninvolved**

* * *

Many perfectly reasonable people are allowed to remain ignorant of the more unsavory aspects of the world, simply as a by-product of their privileged lives.  To those who have not been forced to recognize the uglier sides of reality, the terrible workings of the criminal underworld seem little more than fiction created to sell penny pamphlets, and corruption, unless unveiled without a shadow of a doubt, is often explained away as conspiracy.  But a curious mind can uncover horrific injustices that even the most stalwart skeptic cannot deny or condone.  The right detective, presented with the right evidence by an adequately persuasive source, has no choice but to confront the truths shivering beneath the illusionary comforts of her carefully maintained lifestyle. How she confronts these truths defines her character, more so than any of the many contrived acts she undertakes daily to appease her peers.

With the coming of the social season, Jane Crocker’s high society obligations increased dramatically, as did the number of her guests.  Unlike her younger brother, she chose to live year-round in her family’s spacious town house, but she rarely received as many visitors as she did when John came to stay for the summer.  He had not been there a full week before Dave Strider heard word of his presence and came calling.

“Miss Crocker, the younger Mr. Strider is in the parlor,” Jane’s butler announced, tearing her attention away from the newspaper she had been reading as she took her tea.

“He must be here to see John,” she said, and she finished her tea and folded up the newspaper. She did enjoy visits from the Striders, but Dave rarely came unaccompanied unless he knew Jane was not alone to receive him.  He was, for all his eccentricities and middle class upbringing, a gentleman in spirit when dealing with ladies of class.  Mostly. He still consistently failed to stem the flow of obscene imagery that streamed from his constantly running mouth. Far from caring, Jane found his occasional vulgarity refreshing.  She preferred to ignore the usual dreary social protocols with her close friends.  Unfortunately, not all of her friends were as willing as she to ignore social protocol. Dave’s brother, Dirk Strider, was more willing than Dave to be openly brash and had the audacity to call on an unmarried woman alone, but he remained one of the few who did. It was a shame, as the long months between social seasons usually marked a period of isolation for Jane.

Still carrying her newspaper, Jane descended the steps to the first floor, from which disjointed strands of delicate music floated through the house.  Jane could not remember a time she had seen Dave Strider without a belt of timepieces and musical snuffboxes wound around his waist.  She couldn’t tell if he wore it as an advertisement of his trade or simply because he liked the tinny melodies that followed him wherever he went, but she appreciated it.  She followed the music into the parlor, which was washed a lazy gold with midsummer sunlight, accenting the bright red and deep blue of the two occupant’s waistcoats.  She came just in time to hear John tell Dave about his latest invention.

“All you have to do is get on it and work a few buttons, and you’re off ground.  It’s the world’s first hoverboard!”  John said.  Dimples marked his cheeks when he grinned, a cute trait that made it far too difficult to punish him for his mischief.  Dave’s own smile seemed nonexistent in comparison, but his charisma was not a result of the expressiveness of his face.

“Sounds great, Egbert.  Are you going to show it to me, or are you just going to talk about it a lot while I sit here with my hands down my pants?”

“Ahem,” Jane said, still standing at the door. She stifled a small laugh as the two men startled, Dave in particular showing minute signs of chagrin that would be lost on her if she had not grown so close to his brother.

“Dam—ang,” Dave said, hastily correcting himself before he let slip a curse. “I swear, you get sneakier every time I see you.  Didn’t hear you approach at all.”

With a smile, Jane replied, “It must be all the detective work.  Maybe I’m actually getting good at being a sneak!”  She let out a small laugh, a mere ‘hoo hoo’ that she covered lightly with her hand, a modest habit that had been conditioned into her as a child.

“Sounds like it.  Word on the street is that you bagged some tradesman for embezzlement the other day.  You’re becoming a regular celebrity among us lowly plebs.  Better watch out, or your old lady’s going to get stern and matronly about your involvement with the cops.”

John snorted.  “She doesn’t care what Jane does!” he said. “Between me, Jade, and Jake, she’s got her hands tied!”

The statement was no exaggeration. The Crocker-Harley-Egbert-English family was among the most wealthy and eccentric in New Town. The antics of Jane’s younger brother and two cousins kept her out of the limelight well enough to let her do largely as she pleased.  John’s idea of playing his cards well was limited to a riveting game of 52-pick up. He was known to enliven parties with trick magic and pranks of his own design, and he had lately earned a reputation as an inventor with his WindyThing3000, the device he had been describing to Dave.  Jane’s cousins, Jade and Jake, were even more notorious.  Jade’s strange scientific escapades baffled both the public and the scientific community, which backed her research even while trying desperately to keep up.  Jake had been gone to sea for months, doing his own brand of research as a naturalist. By almost all accounts, Jane was considered to be rather simple in comparison, even if she did occasionally wear trousers and a fake moustache.

“Oh, yeah,” Dave said, leaning back onto his heels as he reminisced on his own experiences with the Crocker-Harley-Egbert-English clan. “Is Miss Harley in town, too?”

“Yeah, she is,” John said.  “But I think she’s goofing off at the university.”

“Cool.  You wanna swing by there with me a little later?”

“Dude, just go visit her yourself. Your brother lives around the university, right?”

With an almost unperceivable sigh, Dave responded, “I know y’all could probably get away with murder, but all the eyes of high society are watching me like the cops watch those caravan vendors when they wander too far into New Town.  I’m nothing more than a lowly clockmaker.  I can’t just waltz right up to a noble lady and ask her what unsettling chemicals have seeped into her bloodstream lately.”

“Dave, everyone loves you.  You’re at the top of every guest list.  You enliven dinner parties like you were born to entertain.  I’m sure no one would give a rat’s ass if you popped in to say hi to Jade,” John said.

“Or you could just come with me.”

“I have to go to the theater later!”

“The theater? Damn it, Egbert, why are you always frolicking off to the theater?”

“Because I have engagements that must be kept. We’ve been over this, Dave. I can’t just call off my engagements whenever I want just because you want to go skipping about the town!”

“Oh, that is such bullshit.  You do it all the time!”

“Well, maybe I like the theater.”

Jane stepped forward and interrupted the half-sincere argument, meaning in part to address her own suspicions.  “John, I did hear something from our uncle about a firecracker that singed poor Ms. Paint’s lovely wig.  Are you stuck paying penance?”

John’s lips pulled down into a somewhat penitent grimace, and Jane glanced at Dave.  “Boom,” he said.  “Detective Crocker, uncovering the answer to yet another mystery nobody knew needed solving.”

“But it still stands that I can’t ignore my commitments,” John said.  “For now. At least until our grandmother decides I’m worthy of receiving funds again.”

“Why don’t you just dip into the mounds of money this hot new invention of yours must be raking in?” Dave asked. “Why do you even need money? I thought an aristocrat’s phlegm was worth its weight in gold.”

“It’s not considered proper for members of the elite to make money from outside sources,” Jane replied matter-of-factly. “Our wealth is in our land. Other forms of income, especially from trade, are considered tacky, like we’re grabbing for wealth or, worse, running out of money ourselves.  John has been donating all his earnings to charity.”

“Except what I need to fund more inventions,” John added with a small shrug.

Dave didn't seem to respond, his eyes obscured behind goggles sporting tinted lenses and magnifying glasses of different strengths and sizes poised ready for use in his delicate work, but Jane could sense in his pause an impatient brand of disbelief. Since his sweeping acceptance into high society, he had been having less of these moments, but they still came occasionally when he learned of a new aspect of aristocratic culture that had not yet been revealed to him.  Both of the Striders tended to disdain the convoluted and somewhat snooty rules and rituals of aristocratic life.  “So let me get this straight,” he said.  “You invent stuff, Miss Harley gives herself radiation poisoning on a regular basis, and you, Miss Crocker, roam around throwing yourself in the path of frothing criminals, and you don’t see a dime for any of it?”

“But we do give plenty to charity,” Jane said.  “Which is, frankly, the only thing we’re good for, if you ask me.”

“It’s not like we need the money,” John agreed, again shrugging.  “I mean, except when our grandmother cuts off our allowances for accidentally setting someone’s wig on fire.”

“Why do you even bother?” Dave asked. “If I had all that money and wasn’t allowed to supplement my income, I sure as hell wouldn’t work hours into the dark night making all this crap.”  He reached down and jingled the various musical boxes suspended from his waist.  “You know what I’d be doing?”

With a grin, John replied, “Wasting away in an opium den with a hooker?”

“What?  No, fuck you.  I’d write music. And not the boring drone that’s in vogue right now, the stuff you rich assholes go to listen to in concert while you slowly doze off from snobbish boredom.  A new brand of music entirely.  Something with the energy of a bar tune but with an added layer of lyrical artistry.”

“I would be interested in hearing that,” Jane said with a widening smile.  Not that she didn’t enjoy classical music, but she had a number of fond memories from brief forays into bars, where women of class dared not go, disguised as a man. Her work justified such excursions, and she found that, with the presence of liquor, painted women, and exactly the sort of energetic dancing music Dave described, her suspects were far more talkative.  She also found she enjoyed herself much more than she would ever admit in the presence of polite society.

“It would be awesome,” Dave agreed. “But we don’t all have unreal amounts of money at our disposal.  You two don’t realize how lucky you are.  I have no idea why you bother working at all.”

“Because it’s fun,” John said.  “Obviously.”

“For you, maybe.  You make flying machines.  I want to hear Miss Crocker’s excuse.”

“My excuse?” Jane said, taken aback. “For my detective work?”

“Yeah.  It’s kind of a gritty profession to pursue for kicks and giggles, isn’t it?”

She thought on the question for a moment.  She did love it.  There was absolutely no question about that.  But she hadn’t been asked to examine her love of detective work before.  “I suppose...” she began, still musing, “that there’s a certain thrill to investigating a mystery. Call me a busybody if you want, but when there’s a mystery afoot, I have the hardest time letting it go! Besides which, I believe too many things are blown out of proportion in this day and age to sate the general public’s appetite for sensationalism and vulgarity.  And I think that’s all very silly.”

“So, like she said, she’s just a busybody,” John said, smirking at Dave.  He made a small hum in his throat and shrugged.

“Speaking of sensationalism and vulgarity,” he said, “or rather, the lack thereof—have you both heard about the murders that have taken place near the university?”

Jane immediately perked to attention. She had not heard about any murders, which was quite strange, given that she had the daily newspaper tucked beneath her arm and had been reading it every morning since she had moved into the town house.  “I haven’t heard a thing,” she said, glancing at John.

“That’s probably because it’s been hushed up,” Dave said.  “Dirk thinks it’s to avoid spreading panic in the university.  I wouldn’t doubt it.  Could you imagine what all those dandies would do if they knew there was a murderer on the prowl?  It would be a dandy disaster.”

“A dand-saster,” John supplied for him.

“Yes.  Very dand-gerous.”

“But, Mr. Strider,” Jane said, furrowing her brow, “your brother lives near the university!”

“He sure does,” Dave replied, but no concern registered on his face.  “Works there, too. But he doesn’t believe it’s a problem.  From the rumors, the victims were all businessmen, apparently involved in drugs. They think it’s an underground drug trafficking operation gone wrong.  If I had more details, I would report them to you, but that’s all I know.  I just figured you’d be interested, Ms. Detective.”

“Well, certainly!  I can’t rest knowing my good friend may be in danger. But it would be reassuring if those rumors were true.  I may have to pay a visit to the police headquarters to see what information I can glean.”

“Hey, cool.  So, if you’re gonna be in that part of town later, is there a chance you’ll drop in to say hi to Harley?”

Jane couldn’t help but release a laugh. “Hoo hoo!  Yes, I can arrange for that, and yes, I would be glad to accompany you.”

“Sweet,” Dave said with a microscopic smile. “Look, Egbert, even your sister can make time for me.”

“Oh, shut up,” John replied, rolling his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

The police headquarters was located not far from the university, just beyond the edge of the central square of New Town, which was also the central square of Old Town, since Old Town possessed neither its own square nor its own center.  Few people understood the division between Old Town and New Town. They were, in fact, one municipality, subject to the same laws and governed by the same mayor, yet they were treated by their residents as entirely separate entities.  If anyone were curious enough in the nature of this divide to research the turbulent history of the New Town-Old Town relationship, they would find that, some two hundred years prior to the present day, Old Town had played much the same role as New Town now played, boasting the city’s government as well as its main centers of art and commerce. When the slow machine of industrialization pressed against the city’s limits, however, bringing with it factories, pollution, and corruption, the wealthier members of Old Town fled to the cleaner, more pictorial countryside across the river, creating what is now known as New Town and leaving the residents of Old Town to fall into the cycles of poverty that so often plague the working classes of societies with no means of social advancement.  At the highest point in New Town, the grandiose St. Calliope Cathedral, Old Town was visible as a black blot stretching east from the river to the slaughterhouses on the outskirts of the city limits, following the river far to the north and pressing against the ocean shore to the south.  Jane, who rarely visited the cathedral except on special holidays, found it easy to forget about Old Town, as did most of her peers.

The slow rise of smoke on the eastern horizon only barely marred the simple splendor of the central square.  Government buildings rose above the square, stately and impressive, almost equal in architectural beauty to the art museum or the theatre.  Jane passed by the courthouse and the legislative building on her way to the police headquarters, which was only slightly more humble in comparison.  She once felt varying degrees of trepidation and uncertainty when passing through the front doors of the headquarters, especially since very few women of her station ever did, but she no longer wasted time pandering to doubts and fears.  Her reputation and abilities parted her path for her.  She welcomed the eager greetings of officers with whom she had experience working, but she did not pause to chat.  Weaving through desks and doors, she eventually found the man she was looking for.

“Chief Inspector Ampora!” she called, strolling forward at such a pace that he would need to adopt a clipped trot to evade her. He released an exasperated groan before turning to face her.

“What’re you doin’ here?” he asked. Eridan Ampora was a man who held himself as though he had a broomstick for a spine, and his face rarely did anything other than glower.  Jane had never once seen him smile.  He also had a thick, coarse accent in his voice that grated upon her ears, but she tried not to hold it against him. She had quite enough to hold against him as it stood.

“Chief Inspector, I heard news of a series of murders taking place near the university, and I would like to hear more!”

“Lady Crocker—“

“Miss Crocker is fine, thank you.  As I’ve said many times before.”

“Miss Crocker.  We’ve been over this.  You’re an amateur detective, and you got no place stickin’ your nose into murder investigations.  This ain’t some civic dishonesty case where the worst you can suffer is a paper cut. This is serious business, and it’s _my_ serious business, so you just turn around and take your trouser’ed butt home.”

As she usually did when discussing any matter with Eridan, weather and popular literature included, Jane adopted a defiant stance and a small, tight frown.  “I would appreciate it if you left my buttocks out of this discussion.”

“Well, it sorta speaks for itself, doesn’t it?” he said with a sneer.

“I won’t take the bait!  You’ve been hiding important matters from me, buster, and I want to be properly informed!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, like I actually got the time to deal with this!  You think I got any sorta responsibility to disclose confidential information to every nosey snoop that makes it past the front doors?”

“May I remind you that I am _not_ just any nosey snoop?” Jane said, coming as close as she ever did to threatening the chief inspector.  Although he found her constant involvement in his work insufferable, Eridan was well aware of her clout in both the office and the political world, and he generally made a point to stay on her good side, practically speaking. He released another explosive groan.

“What d’you want to know?” he asked.

“I only want to confirm that these murders were the result of a drug operation gone bad.”

He rolled his eyes.  “I don’t know how these things get around.  Honestly, you try to keep somethin’ quiet, and soon the whole town’s saying the mayor got shot by a river monster.”

“So that’s not the case?” Jane asked. Against her better judgment, her curiosity piqued, but she kept it tightly contained as always. Facts came first for Jane Crocker, and business was always nothing more than business.

“Hell, it might be!  That’s why we’re investigatin’ it, ain’t it?  All we know for sure is that all the victims were killed by the same guy, and that they all had dealings in Old Town one way or another.”

“But that would still suggest there was one motive for all the murders, wouldn’t it?” Jane asked.

“Obviously.  Someone’s got a grudge against whatever the hell these guys were all up to, which I’m willin’ to bet was the same thing.  We got no proof yet, but these guys must’a been affiliated somehow.”

Jane sighed and forcibly put on a smile to offset the tension she had created in asserting herself.  Eridan remained sour, as he always did, knowing that she was following the well-practiced pattern of communication that had somehow developed between the two of them.  “Well, Chief Inspector, I frankly don’t know what all the hubbub was all about!” she stated.  “None of that seemed particularly confidential to me.  It might help to dissuade gossip if you just released that much information about your mysterious murders.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, cuz all of the victims were important businessmen, and we’re tryin’ not to go too public with all’a this,” he said.

Jane’s cheerful facade vanished with very little resistance.  “Oh, they were important?”

“Important enough.  Up-and-coming merchants and tradesmen, working their way to the top’a the common class.  You heard their type.  New money aristocrat wannabes with factories and businesses that do too well for their own good. The kind your hot-shit grandma would scoff at for their gaudy as fuck tastes in just about everything.”

“Oh,” Jane said, frowning.

“Yeah, ‘oh.’  Just think’a the heyday the papers would have if they knew that young rich assholes were getting offed left and right just off the university campus. That doesn’t make us look too good. And all the dandies in the university would probably have conniptions, expecting they’d be the next, seein’ as they’re all so fuckin’ full of themselves.”

“Yes, an absolute dand-saster, so I’ve heard. But...these men, you said they had dealings in Old Town?”

“Yeah.  Drugs, hookers, black market crap, dirty money, who knows what they got their grubby hands on looking for the step up they needed to get rich. Not the kinda scene you’d want to get involved in, trust me.  It’s a shitshow over there.  I’m honestly not surprised they’re dead.”

“Hmm,” Jane said, rubbing her chin. “Well then.  I suppose that was all I wanted to ask you.”

“What, you’re not gonna sink your claws into this one?” Eridan said with a pronounced sneer.  Jane shot him a look that was as much disdainful as it was dismissive.

“You know perfectly well that I try to avoid murder cases, Chief Inspector.  I was simply asking because I have a friend living near the university, and I wanted to reassure myself of his safety.”

“Good!  Keep it that way.  This is a nasty case, and I don’t need some cushy high-birth dame showin’ up and gettin’ herself into trouble.  I know you gotta add some excitement to your oh-so-boring high class life with all your fancy wines and foods and parties, but keep to the petty shit.”

A stab of resentment brought Jane close to initiating a heated argument about her own merits, but she found that such arguments did little to change Eridan’s opinion of her and generally accomplished nothing more than to dredge up frustrating feelings of impotency and childishness. She pressed her lips together and gave him a curt nod instead.  “Good afternoon, then.”  And, as she turned away, breathed out a whispered, “Fishface.”

Jane had expected her confrontation with Eridan to last much longer than it had, and she wandered into the bustling square, contemplating how to spend the time remaining until her ‘accidental’ meeting with Dave Strider at the gates of the university.  She decided she might take a stroll down the streets, which were lined with tidy trinket shops, bookstores, coffee houses with imported brews, tailors, and other cozy establishments that served and entertained politicians and the university crowd alike.  The sky was abnormally cloudless, and the brightness of the blue shocked Jane’s senses, which had grown accustomed to the haziness of the atmosphere above the city.  She remembered how lovely it had been spending her childhood in the countryside, far from any pollution produced by Old Town factories.  Although Old Town was downwind of New Town, which allowed the pollution and soot to be carried and deposited away from New Town houses, a faint, washed out haze still clung to the sky, reminding her of the pitfalls of city life.  Yet, on this day, New Town felt like an almost quaintly urban reproduction of a country afternoon. The trees that had been planted almost obsessively up and down the cobbled streets moved lazily in the breeze, reproducing the sounds of the orchard Jane remembered from her family’s main estate.  The sun’s cheerful rays enlivened the attractive shops, which often boasted facades painted in pleasant colors, bright or pastel, and occasionally tables and chairs for patrons. Outside of the social season, Jane rarely left her house for anything other than work, being something of a homebody—stuck at home by her own will and disposition, one might say—but the perfect weather on this day made her wish she emerged more often. Her friends living so far away, or living close but without the social permission to visit, she usually felt no need to wander.  Days like these were rare.  Most days, New Town weather had the particular power to make an unaccompanied wanderer feel quite lonely, which, unfortunately, affected Jane badly.

She was pondering on this, beginning despite herself to feel rather foolish for strolling about mindlessly, when she heard someone call her name.  She turned to find Dirk Strider, Dave’s older brother, approaching her with a large bag in hand. His face was as expressionless as his brother’s, and his eyes were likewise obscured behind his own pair of ridiculous tinted glasses, but Jane could sense that he was pleased to see her nonetheless.  She greeted him with a smile, relieved to have company.  “Good afternoon, Dirk,” she said, comfortable enough with him to speak on a first name basis.

“Yes and no,” he replied, falling in next to her. They continued walking, and Jane allowed Dirk to take responsibility for navigation, herself having nowhere in particular to go.

“Yes and no what?” she asked.

“Yes, it is a good afternoon, in terms of weather. No, it is not a good afternoon, in terms of other standards of appraisal.  I’m just coming back from Mr. Zahhak’s shop with parts for Tavros’s prosthetics.”

“Oh, goodness!” Jane said, glancing at Dirk with concern. “Did something happen?”

“Standard wear and tear, but when robotic limbs are directly connected to the nervous system, that becomes an issue of immediate importance.”

“I would think so!  If you have to hurry, don’t let me slow you down.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” he said with a small shrug. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked.  That’s probably my fault.  I always have one too many things on my plate, and it really becomes a task in itself to manage everything.  You’ve received my letters?”

“Yes, of course.  Don’t beat yourself up.  You’re a busy man, and I respect that.  It really is nice of you to write, even when you don’t have time to visit.”

“I appreciate that, Jane.  I really do.  But enough about me.  You’ve heard about my shit.  What have you been up to these days?  It’s unusual to find you walking about by yourself.”

Jane sighed.  “Yes, well.  I was actually just at the courthouse, inquiring about those murders. Your brother told me about them yesterday.  I’m scheduled to meet with him at the university so he can overcome his silly fear of angering the entire upper class by speaking with a woman alone.”

The corner of Dirk’s lips lifted in a smirk so small it was almost unrecognizable as a smirk at all.  “He didn’t get that from me,” he said.  But almost as soon as it had come, the smirk dropped.  “You’re not going to get involved in those murders, are you?”

“Heavens, no!  I was merely curious, that’s all.”

“You know what they say about curiosity, don’t you, Jane?”

“Well, I’m sure they say plenty about it.”

“It results in the deaths of small animals of the feline variety.  Do you want to be responsible for a feline genocide, Jane?”

“Oh, stop,” Jane said with a playful swat at Dirk’s arm.  The smirk reappeared, and he stopped walking.  Only then did she realize that they had arrived outside his own town house, which was much more modest than Jane’s but cozy in its own way.

  
  
_Image by[gloomy-optimist](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com)_  


“Do you have time to come up for some tea?” he asked. “I’m sure we’ll share some scathing gossip at the next dinner or ball or party or whatever, but I frankly can’t stand half the people I’m forced to talk to when I go out and I hate having to interrupt conversations to pretend like I do.”

Jane laughed.  “I would love to!  But...don’t you have to take care of Tavros?”

“That won’t take any amount of time. But I can understand if you don’t care to watch that sort of thing.  It can be—“

“Oh, no, I would love to!” Jane said again. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you work before, to be honest.”

“Well, then, come right in,” Dirk said, opening the door for her and gesturing inside.

Dirk’s house was clean but strange, covered in unusual posters he had the habit of stealing when they caught his eye and littered with junk parts and robotic limbs swept into neat little piles.  He and Dave enjoyed swapping items of their own respective trades, made by their own hands, so Dirk had a number of clocks and music boxes sitting about.  He was also the proud owner of a gramophone, which Jane was sure had been taken apart and put back together more times than Dirk himself could count. And, of course, the puppets. Jane never could understand Dirk’s obsession with puppets, but he had an almost alarming number of the little mannequins hanging about from strings, representing a full range of craftsmanship, eras, and nations of origin.  Jane thought they were bizarre, and she had heard that Dave found them downright creepy, but with the wealth Dirk had acquired through his own hard work, she figured he was entitled to collect whatever he pleased without criticism.

“This way,” Dirk said, leading her up the stairs. She followed, careful not to disturb the puppets hanging from the stairway.  Both his quarters and Tavros’s were on the second floor. It was unusual for a servant to live in a room intended for the resident’s family, but Dave had moved out a long time ago and Jane imagined that Dirk was lonely.  He would never admit to it, she knew, so she didn’t ask.  In any case, he had no other servants, and he even refused to fully admit that Tavros was a servant, preferring to call him his “practical roommate” or sometimes his “employee.” He earned countless skeptical looks for it at social gatherings.

“Tavros,” Dirk said, knocking on the door of his room before entering.  Tavros was laying on his stomach, sprawled across a somewhat ratty futon, the fraying threads of which he was picking at with something like dejection. He was wearing a shirt, but his lower body was covered only by a small cloth.  He perked up when Dirk entered the room.  “I ran into a friend on the way here. Mind if she takes a seat?”

He glanced at Jane.  “Oh, hello, Lady Crocker.  Um...sorry about not wearing any pants.”

“Miss Crocker is fine, Tavros.  And it’s also fine that you’re not wearing pants. Your legs are mechanical.”

He smiled in response and addressed Dirk, “I think it’s fine, probably, if she’s here.”  With a nod, Dirk pulled two cushioned footstools to the futon and gestured for Jane to take a seat beside him.

“Wanna lend me a hand?” he asked.

“Lend you a...?  I’m not sure I can be of any use in repairing something so intricate,” Jane said.

“All you have to do is hold stuff for me. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?” He knew that Jane’s curiosity would get the better of her, and, sure enough, she slipped onto the footstool, uncertain but attentive.  He turned back to Tavros.  “I’m going to pull up your shirt now.  I know we’re in the presence of a lady, but don’t blush too much.”

The statement had the opposite effect on Tavros, and a scarlet bloom blossomed across his face and over his ears. He did not protest, however, and remained still while Dirk exposed the artificial spine that ran up to his neck, directly over his natural spine.  The metal ridges covered a network of complicated wires, which served as a secondary nervous system to bypass the injury in Tavros’s spine, as well as a system of innumerable miniature pistons and gears that were designed to follow Tavros’s movements, allowing him the full range of motion his natural spine would otherwise allow.  Dirk let Jane lean in for a closer look, watching her examine the workings of his genius with only a small hint of smugness in his smile.

“This is amazing,” she said, wishing to touch the whirring machinery but daring not.

“It’s not bad, yeah.  Sometimes I pull Tavros out of his classes to show my students what a working example of this kind of prosthetic looks like. Don’t worry about staring. He’s used to it.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jane said, sitting upright and throwing Tavros an apologetic smile.  He smiled back, albeit far more sheepishly.  Turning to Dirk, Jane asked, “Would this even be considered a prosthetic anymore?”

“That’s what I call it.  ‘Artificial limb,’ ‘cyborg component,’ you can take your pick.  Prosthetic sounds nice and inviting, though.”  Dirk began to unpack tools onto the futon, paying little attention to the well-being of the furniture’s fabric.  As he did so, he began to describe the details of Tavros’s particular design. “Tavros’s case was difficult because of the injury to his spine.  Paraplegia was a new hurdle for me when I found him, not only because the injury was neurological instead of simply local, but also because his limbs had already atrophied beyond repair.  It was a challenge to figure out how to work around the paralysis of the lower abdomen, since we don’t have the technology yet to replace vital organs and reconnect everything the way it needs to be.  It’s possible to bypass many of the systems down there by substituting bags for natural pathways of waste disposal, of course, but that was way too easy for me and inconvenient for Tavros.  So, this is what I did.”

To Jane’s shock, he pulled up a corner of the cloth covering Tavros’s buttocks, but she breathed a sigh of relief when it revealed nothing but more metal.  The only hint Tavros gave to his embarrassment was a slight tightening of his arms around the pillow he gripped.  Dirk examined Jane’s face and, with a teasing lilt to his voice, said, “I didn’t peg you as a woman who was afraid to see a little man flesh now and then.”

“No, of course not,” she said, fighting to appear anything but flustered.  “Carry on.”

“I’m just showing you how this all works. See, we took out the legs and replaced them with mechanical limbs, fitting the mechanical replacements into the joint where the bone of the natural leg would go.  But doing just that wasn’t enough, because a lot of the movement in the legs begins at the gluteus maximus, here. If I had completely removed his lower torso, I would’ve just been able to stick in some pistons and call it a day, but again, that means replacing a lot of pretty important stuff. So, I replaced this muscle instead.  See these pistons and gears?”  Dirk pointed to the complex arrangement of parts replacing Tavros’s buttocks and hips. “They replicate all the movement he would be able to achieve with a good ol’ fashioned ass. And underneath all this, nice and protected, are all the parts of Tavros’s organic body necessary to take care of his biological needs, naturally and without bags, connected up to his brand spankin’ new nervous system so it all works right.  I reinforced his hipbones to help them take the stress of metal friction, but the real challenge was hooking all of this up to his existing muscle and tissue.  It took a bit to introduce all this in a way his body would accept. Hurt like a bitch, didn’t it, Tav?”

“Yeah,” Tavros said, speaking into the pillow he still held.

“That’s the problem with invasive stuff like this. And neurological stuff. If something goes wrong, it’s pretty terrible.  Puts a lot of stress on the body, you know?  We were honestly pretty lucky everything turned out this well. I was worried for a while...it looked like his body would reject the replacement, but we pulled through.”

“Does that...happen often?” Jane asked.

“Often enough.  That’s why I got out of the business.  Well, it’s still my business, and I still make most of the parts.  But when I patented this particular design, things started to get pretty hairy. Patients obviously have to sign some hefty waivers when agreeing to undergo this surgery, but that doesn’t really take the stress off the surgeon.  Nothing sucks quite as much as watching someone go into shock and die when you’re trying your damnedest to help them.”

Dirk’s tone remained cool and even as it always did, but Jane was sharp enough to realize the implication of his words, which in themselves were more than she ever expected to get from him. He was widely recognized for his innovations in biomechanical surgical procedures and earned a substantial fortune off of his patents while still quite young, but he had since given up his lucrative career for reasons he generally refused to discuss.  His decision to retire from active research to teach at the university was controversial when it happened, but most people accepted the decision as graceful.  Due to the deaths caused by surgeries related to his inventions and research, both under his own supervision and the supervision of others, portions of the population began to see him as a ruthless killer with more concern for money than for man.  His retirement became something akin to an apology in the minds of the public, although he received money from his patents either way.  He was still invited to many high society functions as a nod to his unparalleled contributions to medical technology, but lately his relationship to his brother buoyed his reputation more than his own achievements. As Dirk was the one who brought Dave into high society in the first place to keep him company during long social events, both Striders found this turn of reputation ironic and therefore very amusing.

“Okay, Tavros.  I’m going to cut power to the system,” Dirk said, finally getting down to business.  Tavros nodded and gripped the pillow a little tighter.  Dirk took the cover off a small, reinforced box tucked into Tavros’s artificial tailbone, and the slow whir of moving parts slowly died. He quickly began work, popping the metal plate off a ridge midway up the spine, where a gear had spun out of place and dislodged several other apparently important components. He lowered several of the small magnifying lenses attached to his glasses and handed Jane a number of spare parts to hold while he undid the damage.

  
  
_Image by[gloomy-optimist](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com)_  


“Does this feel strange?” Jane asked Tavros. He glanced over his shoulder as much as he could.

“When it’s off, I can’t feel anything,” Tavros said. “But, that in itself is not a nice feeling, since it recalls past horrors and helplessness, so I still don’t like it.”

“The problems come when we’re getting ready to reintroduce power to the system,” Dirk said, still concentrating on the miniscule parts.  “If something is wrong, it can be painful.  We’re lucky this didn’t cut into any of his neurological pathways.  That would’ve sucked a bit, huh, Tav?”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” Tavros agreed, nodding into his pillow.

“Jane, the tweezers?”  Jane passed Dirk a pair of tweezers and leaned forward to see him extract the offending gear.  She already had the replacement ready when he extended his hand for it. With the utmost care and a steady hand only practice and failure could produce, Dirk maneuvered the piece into place and began to set everything else back together.  “Maintenance on this system is a pain in the ass,” he said.  “This is the first of its kind I designed, and it’s not the best.  We do daily checks.  This sort of problem isn’t good, but what we really want to avoid is an electrical problem.  A shock in the wrong place would be catastrophic.  Honestly, I’m disappointed in myself that I missed this.”

Without meaning to, he had finally given her the answer to why Tavros slept in Dave’s old room and not the servant’s quarters near the kitchen.  “Hmm,” Jane said, with a small, knowing smile.

“Hmm?” Dirk asked, glancing at her.

“You’re only human, Dirk,” she said. “You do a fine job.”

“I agree,” Tavros said over his shoulder.

“’Only human’ isn’t good enough when your mistakes are deadly,” he said.  He sat up straight and wiped his brow.  “I’m going to turn it back on, Tav.  Tell me if anything feels wrong.”

The system slowly whirred back to life. Lying stationary, Tavros did not make use of the various gears or pistons in his spine or pelvis, and the wires conducting his neurological signals past his injured spine showed no signs of performance either way.  Dirk waited for the soft sound of the system to reach a certain pitch and instructed Tavros to move.  He lifted his upper torso, arching his back slowly to test the new part. Once in motion, the way lines of pistons compressed or lengthened and series of gears spun to accommodate the movement was immediately visible beneath the plates that protected them, and Jane could not help but stare openly in admiration. 

“How’s that?” Dirk asked.

“It feels fine,” Tavros replied, testing his spine by slowly turning his upper body, shifting his shoulders one way and then another. An almost undetectable smile of satisfaction graced Dirk’s lips.

“Great,” he said, pulling Tavros’s shirt back down. “You should be good to go.”

“I’ll go make you tea, then,” Tavros said. He shifted to get off the couch, and the cloth covering his lower body threatened to fall off. With a sizable blush, he scrambled to cover himself, and Dirk let out an airy chuckle.

“Let’s move to the parlor,” he said to Jane, and they both stood.

Dirk’s parlor was rarely used, but it managed to stay tidy one way or another.  Jane wondered if Dirk did some of his own housework to help Tavros stay abreast of his mess.  Regardless of the apparent cleanliness of the furniture, the air was musty with disuse, and Dirk opened a window.  The light breeze brought in with it the smell of pastries from the bakery down the block.

“They must pump that aroma into the street or something,” Dirk said.  “We stop by there every other day.  Can’t help it. They draw you in. I’m going to be a poor, fat man if I keep eating all this bread.”

Jane laughed, putting a hand to her mouth as was her habit.  “I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”

“You’re right,” he said, dropping into the outdated sofa next to her.  “About the poor part, at least.  I could probably buy that bakery if I wanted to.  Then I’d be in the business of bread and bodies.  But that wouldn’t make me stop inhaling those sugary carbs. Shit goes straight to my hips.”

Jane was about to engage in the joke, but a thought made her pause.  “Dirk,” she said, furrowing her brow, “did you say earlier that you’re still in possession of the business that makes all the parts for those prosthetics?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “And I’m about to be in possession of that bakery, too.”

“I thought you gave it up when you retired to teaching?”

“No, I gave up surgery and research. I still own everything.”

A swell of disquiet pulsed through Jane, overshadowing the interesting new experiences she had had during her visit. Her concern regarding matters of murder, forgotten briefly during the minor surgery she had witnessed, rose again from the depths of her mind and reminded her why it was prudent for her to leave her own house earlier that day.  “Dirk,” she said, “do you know the murders that had been recently committed around this area always targeted young, prosperous men of business, who had made their own fortunes?”

Dirk immediately recognized her consternation, and whatever ease of manner he had adopted after his successful transplant of a new piece into Tavros’s artificial spine melted away.  “I thought you weren’t going to get involved in that,” he said, and only someone who knew him as well as Jane could notice his change in tone.

“I’m not.  But I just had a thought...but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Apparently all the victims were somehow connected to Old Town.  You don’t fit that category, so everything is fine.”

Jane relaxed, but to her dismay, she noticed that Dirk hadn’t.  “Connected to Old Town how?”

“How?  I’m... not sure.  Why? _You’re_ not somehow connected to Old Town as well, are you?”

Jane watched Dirk’s face closely, scanning it for any twitch or change that could betray the inner workings of his mind, but nothing slipped past unless Dirk wanted it to.  He sat for a moment and contemplated what she had said. “I’ve slipped over there once or twice,” he finally said.  “Not for anything too illegal.”

“What do you mean, ‘not for anything too illegal’?” Jane asked, caught somewhere between dismay and outrage.

“I’ll just say that in my early days, medical anesthetic was a bit pricy,” he said.  “And nobody learns this much about the human body from a medical book.”

“So...but, Dirk, this is terrible!” Jane said. “You could be in danger!”

“I sincerely doubt that I was mixed up in any of the stuff those other guys were dealing in,” Dirk said.  Jane didn’t reply.  She was deep in thought, considering the situation in light of the information she had just uncovered.  “Jane, you said you wouldn’t get involved in this.”

“I’m not interested in murder cases,” Jane replied, but not convincingly enough to take the edge off of his attention. She released a sigh and lounged back on the couch, still thinking.  “But I may look into whatever connection these men had.”

“Jane.”

“Just enough to put my mind to rest! It will drive me mad with worry if I don’t at least know that you’re not a target.”

“Jane.”

“Dirk.”

With a small tilt of her head, she looked at him over her oval glasses.  His chest rose in a soundless sigh.  “You’re set on this now, aren’t you?”

“Oh, don’t be like that.  I’m not trying to _solve_ anything.  It’ll be nothing but a small, secretive investigation into these men’s dealings in Old Town, just so I can rest in peace at night.”  She paused, staring for a second at a beautifully constructed clock bearing all the marks of Dave’s expert craftsmanship, deep in thought.  Dirk’s face set in a subtle grimace as her eyes slid to his.  “But it will be a bit of a bother for me to find a good, safe lead, as unfamiliar as I am with Old Town.”

“What can I do to dissuade you?” he asked.

“Don’t worry!  I’m simply covering all my bases.  You would do the same in your own line of work, wouldn’t you?”

Although she could not see his eyes behind his tinted glasses, she stared into what she hoped was the right place, attempting to convey in the set of her jaw and the arch of her eyebrows her pointed resolution.  “You’re as stubborn as a goat,” he said, allowing her to stare him down.

“Oh, rubbish.  You know you’re just as bad.”

“Yeah, I know, which is why I’m not going to waste the energy arguing with you.  If you want a lead, I have someone who might be able to help you. But you’re not going to like it.”

“And why not?”

“A variety of reasons.  One of which is my own affiliation with this person.”

“Which is what?”

“You have to assure me first that this is only for your own mental and emotional reassurance and _not_ for work.”

“Considered yourself so assured!”

“You’re _not_ going through the police or working with them in any way.  Tell me.”

“Dirk, you’re frankly making me nervous with this line of questioning.”

“Well, that’s obviously because I’m about to tell you that some of the things I still do are not strictly legal.”

Jane’s lips pulled into a hard line as she considered his statement, refusing still to lower her eyes from what she believed to be his.  “We’re friends,” she finally said.  “What you tell me in confidence, I will keep in confidence.”

“That’s good to know, because the university would be pissed if this got out to the police,” Dirk said with a nod.

“Wait, the university is involved?” Jane asked, surprise causing her tough act to slip momentarily.

“Look, students need to study actual cadavers to learn a damn thing about the human body, but with religion in the state its in, the number of people lining up to donate their bodies to science is dismal. Too many people believe that we need to be buried whole in sacred ground to go to heaven or some other bullshit like that.  So...we ‘borrow’ the bodies without the express permission of their families.”

The character of Jane’s stare changed from determined to disturbed as she processed the confession.  “You steal dead bodies for your students to take apart?” she asked, attempting to keep her lip from pulling up with distaste.

“Tavros usually does the runs, actually, but yes. And the reason I’m telling you this is because the men who were recently murdered, like all dead men and women, move through the hands of my body dealer.  The Undertaker hears things and sees things.  She can tell you a thing or two about your murder victims, maybe even about their murderer.”

As much as she found the prospect odious, Jane could see the logic in his proposal.  It was certainly more of a lead than she currently had, and speaking with someone who knew Dirk well enough to conduct business with him promised to be more fruitful and sound than approaching someone with whom she shared no mutual connection at all.  She nodded. “I would appreciate it if you could arrange for that to happen.”

“Fine,” he said.  They looked up as Tavros slowly entered into the room, carrying a full set of tea precariously balanced on a silver tray, his brow furrowed in concentration and his eyes focused on the load in his hand. Dirk waited patiently for him to bring the clattering silver to the coffee table in front of them before addressing him.  “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Tavros said with a pleased grin. He kneeled beside the table and began pouring the tea, which, from the aroma, Jane could tell contained a hint of jasmine. Again, Dirk waited until Tavros had successfully completed his task before addressing him.

“Tavros, I need you do something for Miss Crocker. Later tonight?” Dirk glanced at Jane for confirmation as Tavros handed her a cup. 

“Yes, that would do nicely.”

“Later tonight, then.  If you’re up for it,” he said, taking the cup Tavros offered him as well. “She needs to ask the Undertaker some questions.”

Tavros reacted to the mention of the Undertaker with happy excitement.  “Oh, yes, I can definitely do that!” he said.  He looked at Jane.  “She’s really very nice.  I think you’ll like her.”

“I hope so,” Jane said, hiding her smile behind her teacup.  She did like the smell of jasmine.  She had just begun to take a sip when the clock sounded the hour, and she straightened to attention.  “Oh, fiddlesticks, is it already that late?”

“Oh, yeah, you were supposed to meet with Dave, weren’t you?” Dirk asked.

“Yes,” she said with sigh.  “At least he’s never punctual.  You would think he would be, the way he wears all those pocket watches around his waist!  The things you two do for the sake of irony.  Regardless, I really should get going.”

“What time do you want to meet Tavros? Eight?”

“Eight o’clock would be fine.  Should I meet him here?”

“Uh, if we’re going to the Undertaker, it’s better to meet by the Main Street bridge, since, you know...” Tavros said, exchanging a look with Dirk.  He nodded.

“Can you manage that?” he asked Jane.

“Yes, of course.  I’ll see you then.  I’m sorry about the tea,” she said, setting the cup down with remorse.

“Come by again some time.  We’ll make up for it,” Dirk replied with a small smile.

“You bet!  Have a good evening, Dirk.”

Tavros followed her to the door, holding it open for her as she prepared herself for the street.  “See you later,” he said as she passed through the doorway, and she nodded to him with a smile.

Outside, the light had shifted from the bright yellow gleam of early afternoon to the soft apricot glow that accompanies the lowering of the sun.  The smell of pastries still floated from the bakery down the block.  Jane inhaled the pleasant aroma and began the short walk to the university.  The faint music of a street organ drifted towards her as she meandered down the street, growing louder with each step.  As she turned down the street across from which ran the handsome wall blocking off the grounds to the university, a covered cart, made from wood and painted in garish colors, came into view, not far from the university gate. Dave stood against the wall, dressed in his customary red, but even his music boxes could not be heard above the din of the street organ, set up outside the cart.  A man with a painted face and wild hair stood grinding the organ.

“Hey, sister,” the clown said, sending Jane a lazy, almost distant smile as she approached.  She eyed him warily, trying to keep her opinions of his dress and demeanor from showing too obviously on her face.  He seemed not to notice her disapproval. “You know what you could use some of?  Motherfuckin’ elixir, my wicked sister.  The health tonic of the motherfuckin’ century.  Got some pains or aches?  Can’t keep your motherfuckin’ mind from gettin’ all up and clogged with anxieties and shit? If you’re anything but motherfuckin’ happy, friend, we can be all about fixing you right the motherfuck up.”

“No, thank you,” Jane said with a curt nod. She kept walking, passing by the cart with her eyes kept determinedly forward.

“Aw, that’s cool, sis.  You have a good one.”

Once Jane had finally made it to Dave, she allowed herself a look back at the clown.  “What a strange man,” she said, more to herself than Dave.

“Yeah, I’ve been watching him for a few minutes. Weird guy,” Dave said. He nodded towards the university. “We gonna do this or what?”

“Yes, of course!” Jane said.  “Sorry I’m late.”

“S’cool, I was, too.  For once, someone was later than I was.  I have to step up my game,” Dave said. He gestured into the university grounds.  “Ladies first.” Jane laughed and walked through the gate.


	3. Chapter 3

Electric streetlights ran the length of Main Street, and pedestrians walked in both the cobbled road and the sidewalks, avoiding shopkeepers as they began to bring their goods in for the night.  Occasionally, a motorcar rumbled down the street, popping and hissing with the effort of propelling itself forward on nothing but oil and steam.  The noise, bustle, and buzzing artificial lights, far from disturbing Jane’s peace, shielded her from the anxiety that would otherwise plague her for being so close to the river during the darkening twilight.  She knew that, in an hour or so, the crowd would be gone.  The authoritative clock tower in the central square sounded eight times, followed by the peal of the bells of St. Calliope’s Cathedral and the faint ring from other church belfries spread across the city. Jane picked up her pace, scanning the road for signs of her companion.  She saw neither hide nor hair of him until she had fully come upon the bridge.

Instead of waiting for her on the road, Tavros stood in the shadow of the bridge’s gateway, a stone arch cut through an old, historical structure that had once served as a guardhouse to keep unwanted persons from crossing into New Town.  The guardhouse had been abandoned long before Jane was born, but a watchman still stood at the entrance of the arch, alert to passing travelers. Jane greeted the watchman with a curt nod as she slipped into the shadow of the building, approaching Tavros with an air of authority and aplomb that she could sense was needed to discourage suspicion.  Tavros, once he recognized her, offered her a cheerful greeting.

“We don’t need to go far,” he said, turning to lead her across the bridge.  After they had walked a couple meters, melting into the dusk that fell upon the unlit bridge, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the watchman. “Um,” he said, returning his attention to Jane, “Mr. Strider noticed that you weren’t carrying your, uh, pistol, which is something I guess you usually do when undertaking work-related tasks, and since we’re going to Old Town, and you’re dressed the way you are—nicely, I mean, not to cause offense—he thought it would be prudent if I brought to you this instead.  If you want it.”  Tavros pulled a handsome flintlock pistol from beneath his waistcoat, cradling it in both hands as he offered it to Jane.

“Oh!  How thoughtful.  Thank you,” she said, accepting the firearm with a gracious smile.  “Are you armed as well?”

“I am, yeah, but with a knife, not with a gun, because I don’t know how to shoot,” Tavros said.   Jane’s brow pulled down slightly.

“Is that enough protection for you?”

“Oh, certainly.  I mean, we’re not going that far, and, um, I’m technically a native of Old Town, so I know how to, you know, hold myself right to avoid unwanted attention and stuff like that.”

Jane hummed in response and glanced ahead to the opposite end of the bridge.  Gas lamps cast their glow against the water’s black surface, producing a sickly, greenish gleam that flickered in time with the lamps’ own wavering light. The uneven skyline of Old Town was black against the navy sky, its darkness broken only occasionally by a dim light in a window.  Smoke still rose from behind the buildings.  Jane looked over her shoulder at New Town, which was luminescent in comparison, lavish with electric streetlamps and fairy lights, shining parlors, and the passing headlamps of motorcars.  Only the reflection of New Town’s extravagance on the river, reaching towards the shore of Old Town, broke the illusion of complete separation.

“I’ve never been to Old Town,” Jane mused aloud, pressing down her apprehension in favor of reserving judgment.

“That’s fine,” Tavros responded.  “It’s a lucky thing, I think, to never have been to Old Town.”

There was no guardhouse on the Old Town side of the bridge, and Tavros took a sharp left, following the river towards the city’s northern limits.  Grime stifled the sharp clip of his metallic feet as they struck the old brick surface of the street, and the dark clothes he wore helped him to blend into the night, so that Jane felt herself distant from him, cut out of the darkness in her cheerful blue blouse.  The sounds of barroom revelry snaked down adjoining roads, disallowing her from falling into the illusion that they were alone.  On the opposite bank of the river, New Town still shimmered, but its light could not reach the shadows of the road they walked.  Jane kept her back straight and face blank, trying as hard as she could to avoid giving into delusions of peril.  Old Town was merely poor, she told herself. There were no evils inherent in poverty.

“Here we are!” Tavros finally said, turning to her and gesturing to a building that, upon closer inspection, was actually rather well kept.  He seemed largely unaffected by the atmosphere of Old Town, and Jane found his composure both comforting and alarming.  He looked across the water and put his hands on his hips.  “That’s nice,” he said.  “Usually, I only come here very late, when it’s guaranteed nobody else will see me with the cart, so I don’t really get to see New Town all lit up like that. It looks like a post card.”

Jane followed his eyes and considered the sight from his point of view.  “Yes,” she agreed.  “It does, doesn’t it?”

“If I had a picture camera, the kind that Mr. Strider’s brother has, I would take a picture,” he said, throwing her an almost shy smile.  She felt her apprehension begin to melt.

“You might be able to talk him into coming all the way out here,” Jane said, returning his smile.  “Who knows?  He’d probably enjoy this sort of thing.”

“Maybe,” Tavros replied.  “It’s hard to tell.”

“Yes, it is,” Jane said with a small laugh.

Tavros turned to the doorway of the building, holding the door open so Jane could pass before him through the portal. The front room was dim and well furnished, with several satin-lined caskets for display. A number of photographs were propped against the wall atop wood paneling of surprisingly fine quality, and the floor was likewise wooden.  Tavros stepped inside after Jane and shut the door with a light click.

“Miss Megido!” he called, strolling forward towards a curtained doorway.  “Miss Megido, it’s Tavros Nitram.  Uh, I know I didn’t say I would be coming today—sorry—but I’m not here for usual business, so...“

A strange wind blew into the room, pushing away the curtain and bringing with it a chill that was unnatural for the season. Jane wrapped her arms around herself. Following the breeze, a young woman, lovely but pallid, strolled into the room with a broad grin.  Her lips were painted a dark red, which washed away whatever color may have been in her face, and her garments were a similar shade of deep, rich scarlet.

“Tavros!” she exclaimed, taking his hand in hers as though he were a lady and she a gentleman.  “Are you paying me a casual visit?  I’m touched!”

“Uh, no, but, uh, I’m not against doing that in the future,” he said with an embarrassed but somewhat pleased smile. “Actually, I’m here because Mr. Strider asked me to bring his friend, Lad—uh, Miss Crocker, so she could ask you some questions.”

“Hello,” Jane said, raising her hand it greeting.

“Miss Crocker, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the woman said, stepping past Tavros and taking Jane’s hand.  “I am Aradia Megido, the undertaker. How can I be of service to you?”

“Actually, I’m here to ask you about some recent murders,” Jane replied.  She straightened, adopting an air of business.  Aradia’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, yes, the New Town murders.  You must be with the police,” she said.

“Not quite.  I’m a private detective, here on my own work.”

“Then you must not have any of the information yet! Please, follow me to the back. I’ll answer all of your questions to the best of my ability.”

Aradia strolled to the curtain and held it open for her guests.  The back room was far larger and less inviting than the front, not only because it lacked the decorations and luxuries of the front room but also because it stored additional caskets and coffins, some of which were smaller and plainer than Jane found comfortable.  Aradia passed them and led them to another room, which, compared to the first two rooms, was austere and chilling.  Four bodies lay upon tables, covered in bloodied sheets.  On the far wall, a number of tools, surgical by the look of them, hung from the wall.

“As you know,” Aradia said, stepping forward, “it’s customary to conduct corpse part—funerals, I mean, from the home or the church, but when the corpses are as gruesome as these, they come to me and I try to make them presentable for their final rest.  But that’s good for you, because you can do your own investigation right here!”  She gestured into the room with a sweep of her arm, the wide grin spreading again across her face.

  
  
_Image by[gloomy-optimist](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com)_   


“Oh, well...” Jane said, momentarily losing her professional composure.  For a passing second, Aradia’s smile seemed something more than friendly—deranged, perhaps, or even bloodthirsty.  But Jane concluded it was nothing more than the red paint on her lips and attempted a half-hearted laugh to dispel her tension.  “I’m not sure that’s necessary!  I really just want to ask if you might’ve learned something from their injuries, or if you know anything about their deaths. How they were connected in life, for instance.”

Aradia’s face fell in surprise, and she let out a small, “Oh.”  Adopting an aura of serious contemplation, she turned to look at the unsettling mounds that had once been living men.  “I can’t tell you how they were connected,” she said.  “But I can say with some confidence their murderer was probably from Old Town.  New Town murders are usually clean and quick, done in secret after careful planning. These murders, though, are more like the grisly sort we see happen to Old Town prostitutes and homeless squatters. The kind of murders you’d get from a killer with a taste for gore.”

Perhaps affected by the somber atmosphere of the death room or by the chill that seemed to have settled since their entrance, Jane nearly succumbed to a shudder, which threatened to glide down her spine. “So...are you suggesting that these murders were conducted by some sort of madman, whose motive was not revenge for a past wrong or...some other thing of that sort?”

Aradia shrugged, showing no sign that she shared Jane’s sense of dread.  “It’s hard to say.  If the murderer were out for revenge, it’s likely these men were involved in something serious, or else the murderer wouldn’t go this far.  I doubt this was the work of a hired hitman, though.  They wouldn’t waste their time.”

“So that’s what you think?” Jane asked. “It’s either a crazed serial killer, or else someone who was terribly wronged by these men?”  She glanced at Tavros, and he at least seemed to harbor the same misgivings she did.

“Cheer up!” Aradia said, noticing the perturbation in their expressions.  “This is excellent news.  It will be far easier for you to find out why these men were killed if they were involved in something big.  And if it’s a serial killer, you already know what type he’s going for!”

“Yes, that’s currently my problem,” Jane said with a sigh.  “Mr. Strider seems to fit the bill.”

“Oh,” Aradia said.  A tense silence fell.  “Well,” she said, beating away the gloom with her smile, “I can help you this much.  If you want information about what goes on in Old Town, visit the pub on 413th Street, the Three-eyed Cat.  The owner of the pub is always savvy to the latest, most obscure Old Town gossip, even the shadier stuff.”

Jane removed a small notepad from the pocket of her waistcoat and wrote down the street and pub names in a hasty scrawl. “Thank you,” she said as she slid the notebook back into her pocket.  “This has been a wonderful help.”

“It’s no problem at all.  Come by if you have more questions!” Aradia responded with her somewhat unsettling smile.  “And, Tavros, you can stop by any time at all.”

“Thanks,” Tavros replied.  He returned her smile, and Jane again noticed how undisturbed he seemed to be by things that bothered her.  Her lips turned down into a grimace as she unwittingly accessed her tolerance, or lack thereof, for things she found to be creepy. She reminded herself firmly that, until her work was finished, she had no choice but to endure Old Town oddities.

As Tavros slipped out of the front door behind her, still smiling, he said, “See?  She’s really very nice.  A lot of people think that, because she’s an undertaker, she must be weird, but I don’t think so.”

“Yeah,” Jane said, trying to hide the note of uncertainty in her voice.  Across the river, New Town was beginning to darken for the night.  Not wanting to walk the path they had come without the beacon of New Town shining across the river, Jane turned down the road and nodded to Tavros.  “Shall we?”

“Yes, of course,” he said.  As they began the trek to the bridge, Jane retreated into her mind.  Her search was not only proving fruitless but was deepening her concerns, and she found herself sinking into a case she never wanted to take.  The bodies in the back room, disfigured as she knew they were beneath the cloths that covered them, were disturbing to her, victims of a brand of crime she would much prefer to delegate to more knowledgeable professionals.  Yet, at the same time, the flame of her curiosity burned a little brighter, fueled by the morbidity of the situation.  For what reason would a serial killer, whose thirst for blood would be just as sated by the vulnerable population sleeping on the streets of Old Town, want to target young, prosperous men living in a location that was well-protected by police?  And if it weren’t a serial killer, what illicit activity were these promising young men engaged in, that their participation would warrant such a brutal end?  Jane was firm in her conviction that she couldn’t be bothered to know...and yet, she was.  And, as much as she hated to waste attention on any of the words that gargled from Eridan Ampora’s mouth that did not directly involve a case, she felt a dim but persistent itch to prove she was capable of handling herself in the face of these challenges, despite her gender and class.  Her shameful discomfort in even the sparsely peopled outskirts of Old Town, with New Town visible across the river, pressed her insecurities regarding the issue, disappointing her so much that she felt pressured to redeem her own character to herself.  By the time they came upon the bridge, she was half-scowling to herself, frustrated with her conflicting emotions and fully engaged in self-admonishment.

She nearly jumped when Tavros addressed her, his voice unexpectedly loud in the deepening night.  “Are you worried?” he asked.  She turned to him and noticed he was examining her face with concern.

She sighed and, after a second, admitted, “Yes, I am.”

He nodded.  “Me, too.  I wasn’t before, but I think what Aradia said was disconcerting.”

“Yes,” Jane agreed.  They fell silent until they reached the New Town side of the bridge.  Jane turned to Tavros, removing the flintlock pistol he had entrusted to her for their walk. “Give this back to Dirk,” she said. “He may need it now more than I do.”

Tavros nodded and took the firearm, replacing it back into his waistcoat.  “Yeah...I’ll do that.  What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to be careful.  And _make sure he listens_ ,” she said.  She crossed her arms and leaned forward for emphasis, and Tavros nodded his head again, more vigorously than before.

“Yes, of course,” he said.

She stood straight again with a sigh. “Thank you, Tavros. And thank you for accompanying me.”

At that, he smiled.  “You’re welcome,” he said.  “Will you be okay going home?”

“Yes, I should be fine,” Jane said. “Thank you.”

He nodded and turned to walk down Main Street, heading straight towards the central square.  The thoroughfare was still lit with electric lights, and Jane had never felt so grateful for such a small, forgettable amenity. She released a quiet sigh and began her own long walk home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 2: Old Town**

* * *

The refreshing purity of the previous day’s sky was lost beneath an uneven blanket of clouds, dull and in some places deep gray, replicating so closely the tone of winter that those who remained indoors were compelled to question why their houses were so pleasantly warm. Jane, taking her breakfast with John and Jade, looked out the wide windows and frowned.  The temperature had dropped to a humid lukewarm in the night, and the cover of clouds promised rain.  She was not pleased with the development.

“Do you have plans today, Jane?” Jade asked, watching Jane over an already empty plate.  Jade had the maddening habit of finishing her food far too quickly, but no one could force her to take her time.  Jane suspected she had developed the habit by eating while she worked.

“I do,” Jane said.  “And I wish the weather would’ve stayed the way it was, because it would have made my plans a little less bothersome.”

“Is it a work thing?” John asked, taking interest.

“In a way...”

“Grandma will be mad if you work too much during the social season,” Jade said.  She laughed, since she was so often guilty of the same transgression that her advice seemed ridiculous, and John joined in.

“It shouldn’t be an all-day thing,” Jane said with a smile.  “But, if I am late to Lady Leijon’s dinner, feel free to cover for me any way you see fit.”

John, knowing the comment was for him, beamed with the scheming grin of a prankster.  “If you insist!” he said.

 Jane excused herself from the table as soon as she had finished her breakfast, walking the familiar path to her room on the second floor.  Jade had come so early in the morning that she and John had been forced to wake hours before they would have otherwise done so, but Jane was grateful for the company nonetheless.  The house felt more alive when John and Jade were in the city. She missed the days when Jake would accompany Jade for a visit, but it had been a long two years since he had left on his expedition.  Jane resolved to write him a letter with the extra time Jade’s early wake-up call had given her.

Before she sat down at her desk to write, she went into her closet and stooped to locate among the clutter of shoes and packages a simple but sturdy wooden box.  She dragged the box out and opened it, revealing a robotic rabbit crafted in polished bronze, with red shades identical in shape to the shades Dirk Strider wore.  Jane loved to examine the elaborate mechanisms that animated the frisky automaton when it was deactivated, which was the only time the blasted thing sat still long enough to be examined.  Lil’ Sebastian had not been activated in over a month, but Jane felt the severity of the situation merited its involvement.  Careful of the sheets of metal and gears that threatened to pinch her skin if it skimmed too close to the automaton’s joints, she turned it over and pried open a control box at the base of its neck.  Flipping a switch, she brought the rabbit to life. Its triangular shades glowed red.

“Hey there, you little troublemaker!” Jane said, smiling as it squirmed out of her arms.  Its movements were far more fluid than its design would suggest, and it was easy to forget the little rabbit had no conscious of its own.  In truth, Jane was unsure what to think about the question of Lil’ Seb’s consciousness.  Her meager understanding of robotics made her inclined to believe it was impossible for the rabbit to think on its own, least of all to feel, but Dirk had been evasive on the subject when he granted it to her as a gift.  He had not gone into detail about the automaton’s design, providing only information essential for its maintenance, and he would only say that it was Jane’s responsibility to discover for herself the automaton’s more compelling secrets.  Jane suspected, given Dirk’s sly riddles on the subject, that she had only seen a fraction of Lil’ Seb’s true capabilities as a fully independent machine. Dirk explained that Lil’ Seb was meant to operate as a form of protection for her in her line of work, but her usual cases rarely tested any of its abilities, as they were almost exclusively unadventurous.  This new case, however, promised to provide ample opportunities to explore the mysteries of Lil’ Seb, and Jane felt her anticipation grow despite her firm resolve to stay cautious.

“Don’t you get too worked up yet!” she said, grabbing onto Lil’ Seb’s arm as it tried to flit away.  “I still have to get ready, and I want to write a letter first. If you need to put that fidgetiness to constructive use, why don’t you prepare me an outfit?  I need a disguise.  Male, preferably, as we’re trekking into dangerous territory today.”

Lil’ Seb responded with an enthusiastic nod, and it slipped away into the shadows of Jane’s closet, which hid innumerable garments for both personal and professional use.  Jane stood and moved to her desk, removing from the drawers her ink and parchment.  Her letters to Jake were always long and detailed.  She imagined that he received letters from many of their shared acquaintances, but she liked to include details of his loved ones’ lives nonetheless, just in case he happened to be feeling lonely at the time her own letter arrived. Jane only knew of the world beyond their small nation from fanciful novellas that she did not particularly like, so her frame of reference for Jake’s daily life was horribly skewed, a fact of which she was well aware.  If she were more of the rough-and-tumble adventurous sort, she might want to go visit him.  She knew better than that, however, and stayed where she was, hoping that he found enough excitement and company to keep him relatively happy wherever he ended up.

By the time she had finished writing, Lil’ Seb had lain out a number of ridiculous outfits, many of which did not include the necessary components to be considered proper outfits at all.  Jane breathed a small sigh, which was as amused as it was frustrated, and stood to finish the task herself.  The amount of men’s clothing she owned for a woman of class was alarming, but she felt secretly proud of her assortment. After a little nit-picking, she eventually decided on a plain, neutral outfit, working class in appearance but not in wear, with an unremarkable handlebar moustache to offset the femininity of her face.  Binding her chest in a comfortable, workable manner that allowed her the luxury of oxygen was a skill she had long since mastered, as was padding the area around her hips to hide her conspicuous curves, rendering her into a portly man. The first few times she donned this style of disguise made her terribly self-conscious, but she soon found that her squat, rounded figure helped her to create the illusion of joviality, which often allowed her to win the trust of witless informants with very little effort.  She now strutted about the city whenever she was in disguise with the unbridled, sometimes audacious confidence her rigid upbringing refused to allow her in a dress.

“How’s this, Seb?” Jane asked, turning for the automaton.  It flashed her a thumbs-up, which she found delightful.  “Hoo hoo!” she chuckled, scooping Lil’ Seb into her arms.  “Let’s go, then.  We have business to attend to!”

Crossing the bridge into Old Town produced a different feeling in Jane during the day than it had the night before. The endless plumes of smoke that billowed from behind the buildings reached into the clouds, disappearing into the haze of gray that was already stretching over the city. The buildings were drear in the dull light filtering through the dismal cover, few boasting the same sort of ornamentation that adorned buildings in New Town, but Jane noticed that many of the buildings this close to the river were actually rather orderly, suggesting the presence of middle-class occupants.  Distant sounds of life filtered towards the bridge from around the corners of twisting streets.  Jane hesitated at the river’s edge, Lil’ Seb waiting at her heels.  Whereas Main Street ran straight to the central square on the New Town side of the bridge, on the Old Town side, it was lost into the labyrinth of narrow, winding roads that had formed from centuries of disorganized, unplanned growth that birthed Old Town.  Jane pulled out her notebook and looked down at the address she had received from Aradia Megido.  413th Street.  As the street was numbered, Jane assumed there must be some pattern to the layout of the roads.  She slipped her notebook back into the pocket of her waistcoat and set her jaw, striding forward with a pronounced air of bravado that would not be lost on any Old Town native. She was grateful for the solid weight of her pistol on her hip.

Uneven blots of tar repaired damaged sections of the shabby brick road, and deep gutters ran along the sides of the street, mostly covered but for some patches where the cover had been somehow broken, revealing the distasteful contents beneath.  Yet Old Town’s Main Street seemed to be just as much the main thoroughfare as it was in New Town, with shops on each side showcasing cheap goods of reasonable quality.  The bustle was louder and more personable than it was in New Town, and the occasional shriek of angered children and holler of laughter added a spice of vibrancy to the crowd shifting up and down the road.  Jane’s disguise was not terribly out of place, perhaps even too working class for the surprisingly dapper crowd, and she was surprised by the ease with which she melted into the throng.  The looks she received were for Lil’ Seb, not for her own appearance. Buoyed by her success and the unexpected lack of degeneracy, she relaxed, if only slightly, and allowed herself to be swept into the heart of Old Town.

She soon realized that she had underestimated the size of Old Town.  New Town was quite large, she knew, and she had made the mistake of assuming that Old Town could not be much larger when it was, in fact, several times its size. An hour of walking down Main Street, she had only come upon 67th street, and still the road weaved on.  Soot began to mar the surface of roads and buildings.  The farther she ventured, the shoddier the buildings around her became, and the people moving past her began to bear harder marks of labor and disease. She began to notice an itch in her throat and nose as the air grew gritty with pollution, yet the factories were still beyond her sight, hidden behind cramped masses of buildings, which swirled around each other as if to form a maze.  To her relief, numbered roads were large enough to be marked, but between those, nameless alleys and lanes snuck beneath archways and down stairs into dark pits Jane did not want to contemplate.

Her confidence waned.  All signs of the middle-class had disappeared, and the residencies and shops grew more wretched the longer she walked.  Every solid surface bore a film of black grime, and the gutters were left uncovered and clogged with filth.  Jane recognized the repugnant smell of animal waste and struggled to convince herself it came not from human beings but from horses or dogs. Her clothes were now appropriate to the class of people surrounding her but did not bear nearly enough marks of labor to place her as a true native.  People wore a haggard look the likes of which she had never seen on anyone in New Town.  They kept their heads down, and their occasional mirth was marred by a weariness that never seemed to leave their eyes.

The deepening dejection began to weigh on her. She had read the details of poverty in novels, seen prints of etched scenes depicting sections of Old Town, and even attended lectures on the subject of social inequalities at the university, yet her skin shivered as she passed each person on the road and she jumped upon hearing the dry cough that comes from a lifetime of breathing unclean air. Her body felt unclean. She understood, or rather knew logically, that poverty was nothing more than a lack of resources, and she did not wish to bear any ill will for the human beings she saw for their hardships, yet their presence conjured in her mind subconscious fears of death, disease, and decay. She resisted the urge to cover her nose with her collar.

When she finally came upon 413th street, she was dizzy with disillusionment and dismay.  The street slipped down a steep incline and twisted around narrow, featureless buildings crammed so close together they seemed useless for human activity. She did not want to venture from Main Street.  She had half her mind to turn back and walk home, where she could draw a bath and seep in hot water for the rest of the day, but she reminded herself firmly that she had a purpose for wandering into Old Town.  She looked down at Lil’ Seb, who seemed, as he should, unconcerned about the state of Old Town, and he looked up at her.  His red glasses reinforced her conviction.  She was the only one who could uncover the mystery that was threatening the death of Dirk Strider.  Out of her element though she was, she was equipped to handle the challenges that faced her.  She was a detective, and this was her case.  She must press on.

She pulled out her notebook as she stepped off of Main Street.  The Three-Eyed Cat was the name of the pub she was looking for.  She had passed several pubs on the way, and they all sported small signs marking their business, much to her relief.  She hoped the Three-Eyed Cat would as well, despite the disconcerting fact that it was off the main thoroughfare. Fewer people passed her here, but more sat beneath the eaves and doorways of the buildings, passing the time with makeshift games or alcohol.  To further add to her dismay, many of them were children. She took heart whenever she saw children playing rather than slumping in the shelter of shadows, but not much.

The Three-Eyed Cat was plenty conspicuous when Jane came upon it.  It was longer than most of the other buildings surrounding it, taking up three or four lengths, with windows that looked as though they had been cleaned recently and regularly. Even during the day, electric lamps were lit both inside and outside, demonstrating some amount of wealth. Above it, the buildings had been painted so that a large mural of a three-eyed cat crouched over the pub, which consciously utilized the soot covering the building to make the image seem mysterious and interesting.  Jane stopped for a moment to admire the mural and to collect her wits before entering.

“Stay here, Seb,” she said, looking down at the automaton, which, she noted with disappointment, had already begun to collect a film of dirt and soot.  Its moving parts were still lustrous from polishing, and Jane was struck with a sudden awareness of the automaton’s quality.  It looked out of place in the narrow street, as much as a new motorcar might. She looked up and down the road, frowning.  “We need to find you somewhere to wait.  You probably shouldn’t be standing out in the open, what with your metal and parts. You could be stolen and sold for scraps!  Let’s see...”

Before Jane could locate a good hiding spot, Lil’ Seb jogged towards the building and climbed up the doorframe to suspend itself in the shabby overhang above the door.  The shadow obscured it well enough, and the likelihood of anyone stopping to look above them before entering or leaving the establishment was low.  Jane smiled and walked below it to enter.

A bell above the door rang when it opened. Unsurprisingly, the pub was mostly empty, and only two unaffiliated patrons hunched at the bar so early in the afternoon.  Jane, by now familiar enough with bars to conduct herself in an unsuspicious manner, slumped forward and occupied a barstool, trying to emulate the posture of the locals. As though the pressure of her posterior on the seat was a kind of summons, a young woman with platinum blonde hair and a pink dress appeared in front of her, deceptively clean despite the pollution in the air.  Upon closer inspection, Jane noticed marks that placed her within the neighborhood, such as the thin film of dirt on her clothes and skin and the frayed ends of her hair, all of which she attempted to conceal beneath a layer of makeup and powder. The color above her eyes and the glossy pink on her lips sharpened her better features and made her already comely face exceptionally attractive.

“What’s your poison, stranger?” she asked with a disarming smile.  Jane was not a heavy drinker and usually stuck to beer when she was conducting reconnaissance, but the stress of her exposure to worldly evils made her thirst for something slightly stronger.

“A whiskey would be good,” she said.

“You got’cha,” the lady said with a wink. She stepped away and returned almost instantly, holding a tumbler of whiskey that was remarkably clean. She set it in front of Jane with an audible clink, leaning forward across the bar.  Jane took the glass, trying to maintain an air of unsuspicious disinterest.  The woman watched with a languid curve to her posture and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

After a few sips, Jane set her glass down. Since the woman was still eyeing her as though she expected to be acknowledged, Jane decided she could initiate conversation without any pretenses.  “Are you the owner of this establishment?” she asked.

“That’s right,” the lady responded with a teasing lilt in her tone that suggested a flirtatious and sometimes sarcastic nature. “Roxy Lalonde, foxy barmaid by day and brilliant scientist by night, or would be if this bar weren’t such a drag to run.  But science comes from money, so I’m stuck makin’ bank.”

“Scientist?” Jane asked.  She found that people warmed up to her much faster after she had let them talk about themselves in detail first.  Just as she expected, Roxy’s relaxed posture grew even more languorous, and her lips curved into a small, curling smile that was as cocky as it was charming.

“Yeah, I’ve been known to dapple in the more arcane art of producing electricity and keepin’ it produced.  Gotta few home-made tesla coils here and there, light up a few bulbs now and then.  Got _hells_ of dangerous equipment upstairs in my apartments, but I don’t show that to no one because there be thieves in these parts.  Not that you’d know much about _that_ , would you, outsider?” 

Jane’s eyebrows shot up.  “...Oh?” she said for lack of a better response. She was afraid she was obvious, but she had hoped her disguise would hold up a little longer.

“Where d’you get your clothes dry-cleaned at? This rag’s seen better days,” Roxy said, the teasing note in her voice sharpening as she tugged at the shoulder of her dress.

Jane released a small sigh.  “Yes, okay, I’m not from around here,” she said.

“So what’s the story?” Roxy asked. “Judging from the look of your pores, you sure did hike a ways to drink my whiskey.  I know this place has a good reputation, but I’m p sure it’s not _that_ good.”

“The look of my—“ Jane said, reaching up to her face with a frown.  She hadn’t even considered her complexion, but once the subject was broached, she had to admit that it made sense.  Living this close to the factories would have greater effects on her general appearance than the simple dirtiness of her clothes.  She sighed again.  “Yeah, all right.  I heard about this place from Aradia Megido.  Do you know her?”

“Oh, yeah!  Sweet, somewhat unsettling Aradia.  She’s my main corpse enthusiast,” Roxy said with an unabashed laugh. “So, what’d she send you for? I’m willing to bet my small army of stray cats that you’ve got some gossip you want caught up on, amirite?”

Jane’s covert interrogation was going poorly. She suppressed the urge to grimace and said, “ _Okay_ , yes, you’re right. I do have some things I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot!  I’m down with all the nasty bizniz.  Well, not all of it.  And I’m not _down_ with it, in any way like I’m cool with all the horrible shit that happens in the slums or involved in any of it.  I just stay here, passing out booze to the local drunks and polishing my clean as shit glasses.  Did you see my glass?  You wouldn’t find a cleaner transparent object if you looked for miles in every direction of this building.  Shit’s _spotless._   I keep that shit _sterile_.”

Jane glanced down at the tumbler and did have to nod in approval.  “Yes, it is remarkably clean,” she said, and she couldn’t help but smile when Roxy put her hands on her hips in mock triumph.

“There you go.  Even the New Old Town sightseer says so,” she said as if it put some imaginary criticism to rest.

“ _New_ Old Town?” Jane asked.  Despite herself, the barmaid’s energy and charisma was drawing her farther into the conversation than she was wont to go when conducting business, and her curiosity was piqued.  There was no harm in learning more about Old Town while she was in Old Town, after all. It could be useful for her investigation.

Roxy paused, and for a second her face went blank with surprise.  Jane likewise paused and bit her lip.  Roxy’s smile slowly widened into a Cheshire grin.  “ _Oooooh_. I see.  I get it.”

“What?” Jane asked, controlling the disquiet in her expression.  She cursed herself for saying something wrong already.  She had not committed such a blunder in years.

Roxy eyed her face, and her grin became both smug and impish.  “New Old Town is the part of Old Town where the fancipants live,” she explained, and Jane realized that she was going to keep whatever she had deduced about Jane to herself for now. “It’s a stretch over by the river, where e’ryone’s looking to move to New Town one way or another. Hence, _New_ Old Town, for all the hoity-toity in-betweens who aren’t too rich or too poor.”

“Oh, of course!  Silly me,” Jane said.  She nodded, pretending this information was not new but simply forgotten.

“Yeah, o’ course.  And this part of town is...?”

Roxy leaned forward, and Jane understood with growing trepidation that Roxy was now set on quizzing her about her knowledge of Old Town’s unofficial districts.  “This part of town is...—well, I can’t say I wander down here too often, so I can’t be expected to know precisely where I am, can I?”

With a laugh, Roxy leaned back, and the smugness of her expression was so tangible that Jane was sure she was as transparent as the tumbler of whiskey in her hand.  “We’re just outside the slums,” Roxy said.  “The first slums, slums level one.  You don’t get to the edge of the _real_ slummy slums until you reach the tin shacks at the edge of the slaughterhouses, but you’d recognize it by the lepers.  How’s your jaunt in Old Town treating you, Miss...?”

“ _Miss_?” Jane asked, sputtering out the word.  “Ma’am, if you please, I am clearly a Mister.”

For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Roxy seemed to lose her poise.  “Well, I mean, yeah, you’re dressed that way, and with that fake moustache, you might...oh, _shit_ , I should’ve known better that that.  I just figured that, what with all the secrecy, you were like some kind of hot-shot undercover agent playing dress-up, so I didn’t mean to disrespect, even though—hell, mister, you can be whatever you want, no matter how you were born, so don’t let me get you down about it.”

“Oh, to hell with it,” Jane said, peeling off her fake moustache.  “A disguise isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t _work_.”

For the span of a heartbeat, Roxy stared at her, startled, but she quickly recovered and let out a hearty laugh.  “So I was right!” she said.  “That’s a point for Roxy.  You’d better up your game!”

“If you’d please tell me where I went wrong, I’d be much obliged,” Jane said, trying to hide her irritation.

“E’ryone in Old Town knows about New Old Town and the slums,” Roxy said.  “That, and you ain’t the first lady who waltzed in here in a pair of pants. Girls’ve got reasons to dress like men around here sometimes.  You learn to see the signs.”

“Well...’fiddlesticks’ is all I can say on the matter,” Jane said.  “I guess there’s no reason to keep up the act now.”

“Guess not!” Roxy said with another laugh. “What can I do for you, Miss...?”

“Crocker.  Jane Crocker.  I need information on some recent murders in New Town.”

“Ooooooh, New Town, huh?  I thought something was off about you! How are you likin’ the neighborhood?”  Roxy’s words again curled with the teasing lilt, and she leaned forward, a smirk lifting the corners of her lips.

“I...would prefer not to answer that question until I’ve had time to come to a better conclusion about it,” Jane said, hoping the answer was constructed carefully enough to avoid offense.

“Pff, you don’t need to hold back on it! Your skin must be crawling, walking around here,” Roxy said.  “Are the roads of New Town really paved with golden bricks?”

“Oh, please, that would be such a horrendous waste,” Jane said, but she had enough sense to laugh at the joke.  Roxy joined her.

“So there’s been some murders in paradise,” Roxy said. “Sounds mysterious and intriguing. What’chu need me for? Want a femme fatale to help you navigate the dark streets of the city late at night, lookin’ to bring the vicious giants of the criminal underworld to justice for the poor, innocent slaughter of some New Town chumps?”

“Oh, no, nothing nearly so dramatic,” Jane said, letting out another laugh.  “I’m just trying to determine the motive behind the murders.  The victims had some connection to Old Town, and we want to find out if they were all involved in the same thing.  Miss Megido told me that the murderer was probably an Old Town resident, either a serial killer or someone with a very serious grudge against his victims.  I’m hoping it’s the latter and that I can dig up what sort of thing these young men were burying their noses into in Old Town.  Miss Megido informed me that you would know all the most serious criminal activities that take place in Old Town, so...here I am.”

“Oh really?” Roxy said, tapping her finger against her chin in a gesture of mock contemplation.

“Yes, really.  Have you heard anything about it?  Anything that could fit the bill?”

“Hmm... _hmm_...”

Jane watched Roxy think, or pretend to think, with a mixture of amusement and hopefulness.  After a reasonably dramatic pause, Roxy said, “Nope, can’t say I’ve heard of any particularly devious plots involving New Town youths. But there are a hell of a lot of crazy things happening around here all the time, so the thing you’re looking for could literally be anything.  All of Old Town.  That’s who I’d say your murderer is.”

Jane’s hopes were dashed.  “You haven’t heard of any New Town businessmen sulking around the area, getting involved in seedy plots?” she asked, as though pressing the issue would cause Roxy to remember something she had forgotten.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that sort of thing,” Roxy said, and Jane’s hope rose again.  But Roxy continued, “But that could be anyone.  It ain’t news here.  We get New Town meddlers around here all the time. That’s what I thought you were when you first sauntered in here with that nervous little flit in your eyes. Just another New Towner or New Old Towner tryin’ to sneak around like they’re mindin’ their own business when everyone up and down the block knows they got other things on their minds. Opium dens, illegal contraband, whores, illicit arrangements with the big business giants in the factories, all sorts of stuff.”

The information was among the worst Jane could have possibly been given, and she repressed the urge to groan. With a quick swig, she swallowed what remained of her whiskey and grimaced as it ran down her throat, sitting warm in her stomach.  “There must be something that compelled the murderer to go to New Town and tear those men to shreds,” she said, leaning heavily against the bar.  “Do you know anyone who might have any information at all that could lead me in the right direction?”

“Well, you might try—“

The words had barely passed through Roxy’s lips when a slender body slid into the seat next to Jane, setting a half-finished pint of ale on the bar.  “I heard you need a guide,” the androgynous figure said.

“A guide?” Jane asked.

“Aw, I was just about to get to that,” Roxy said. “Were you listening the whole time?”

“No, of course not,” the person replied with a tone that was clearly meant to convey the presence of a lie.

“You were?” Jane asked.  Her brow furrowed as she examined the person now sitting so close to her that their shoulder nearly grazed.  The figure was petite, dressed in simple clothing reminiscent of the paperboys that shouted at corners in an attempt to convince passersby to purchase their newspapers and penny pamphlets, and Jane was thus compelled to believe the person was male.  A pair of bright red glasses shaped like almonds obscured his eyes and covered most of his face.  Beneath a denim hat was a mop of dark, greasy hair that reached just past his jaw line, and his skin was a rich olive underneath a layer of smudged grime.

“Terezi here’s got some mad ins with the locals. I got the gossip, but she’s got the _knowledge_ , you know? If you want to hear about the heavier deets in criminal activity, she’s got you covered.”

Jane noted the pronoun Roxy had used to address her neighbor, Terezi, and examined her a little more closely. As the only individual among her peers who donned clothes of the opposite gender, Jane herself was not used to addressing women dressed as men.  Such a thing was rarely tolerated in New Town, and even Jane had to wade through a backlash of criticism the first time she had been shown to engage in cross-dressing for her profession.  The subject never came up in polite company, certainly not within earshot of her grandmother.  Yet Roxy had said that it was not unusual for women to dress as men in Old Town, and Jane was more willing to acclimate to that fact than many of the other oddities in Old Town culture she had witnessed on her walk over.

“Terezi, then, is it?” she asked, turning to the person next to her.

“That’s right,” Terezi responded.  She flashed Jane a wide grin, displaying a set of unusually sharp teeth, as she extended her hand in greeting.  Trying to hide her hesitation, Jane shook the hand offered to her, ignoring the black dirt caked around the nails.

“And you have information on the murders I was discussing?” Jane asked, resisting the urge to wipe her hand on her pants.

“Probably.  If you want to know about New Town pigs rooting around Old Town, I’m the best person to help you find out, that’s for sure.”

“That’s exactly what I want to know about! The term ‘pigs’ aside,” Jane said. “What can you tell me?”

“Follow me,” Terezi said.  She dropped two coins onto the surface of the bar and stood, tapping the ground smartly with a surprisingly elaborate walking cane.

“Follow you...?” Jane repeated.

“You need a guide, right?”

“Um...actually, what I need is an informant.”

“Same thing,” Terezi said.  “ _Obviously_ I can’t fill you in here.”

“Um...?” Jane said.  She glanced over her shoulder at Roxy, who still leaned against the bar, languid and unfazed.

“You ain’t gonna find anything better,” Roxy said, smiling as though the source of Jane’s discomfort was written on her face alongside the discomfort itself.

Jane exhaled slowly and turned away from the bar, setting a number of coins down herself.  Roxy whistled.  “That’s too much,” she said.

“Consider it a thanks for your help,” Jane said with a smile.  Roxy gorgeous eyes widened, as did her grin.

“Well, shit, you can come back any time, Janey!” she said.

“Janey?” Jane repeated.

“Are we going or what?” Terezi asked, tapping the ground again.

“Oh...yes, of course,” Jane said.  Terezi nodded and moved towards the door, tapping the ground before her with the cane as she navigated the space between the empty tables. Jane hesitated, aware now that Terezi was blind, or at least blind enough to require the assistance of a walking cane.  Blindness was nothing spectacular in itself to Jane, but their presence in Old Town made the disability seem more disquieting than it would have been had she met Terezi in New Town, where she could be assured that blindness was a product of genetics or birth defects rather than injury.  Medical assistance was guaranteed in New Town, as was assistance with daily living for those who needed it, but Jane doubted such services were available in Old Town.  She trailed after Terezi, hesitant with discomfort and a misplaced sense of guilt, as though she was somehow associated with the assumed lack of medical aid in Old Town, even though she barely knew what sort of treatment and help Terezi needed or received.  As she slipped through the door, she told herself firmly that there was no need to make assumptions, that the quality of life in Old Town was not necessarily terrible just because the streets were dirty, and that Terezi’s disability was her own business unless she specifically requested help.

A mist of rain was beginning to fall outside, enriching the hearty odors that already hung in the humid air.  The broken, uneven bricks in the road were damp and slick, and the soot that covered all surfaces seemed like ink with the addition of water.  Lil’ Seb dropped from the overhang as soon as Jane emerged, falling in step with her as she turned to follow Terezi.  Terezi walked a few feet and stopped, turning to face her as she approached.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing in the direction of Jane’s feet.  Jane looked down at Lil’ Seb.

“This?” she asked, gesturing to Seb. Realizing that her question meant nothing to a blind girl, she clarified, “My companion here?”

“Companion?” Terezi asked.  “What, is he made of metal, or just his shoes?”

Jane laughed.  “Yes, in fact, he is!  Or it.  I don’t like to box Lil’ Seb into a gender, seeing how it’s an automaton.  And a rabbit.  But you may refer to him as him.”

“An automaton?” Terezi asked.  With a sort of confidence Jane wouldn’t have expected from someone who could not see where she was going, Terezi walked in the exact direction of Lil’ Seb, stopping immediately before him, and kneeled. She reached out and clapped her hands around the rabbit’s face.  It stayed still, emotionless as it always was, while she rubbed her hands around, feeling its shape and size.

“Watch your fingers,” Jane warned as her hands wandered dangerously close to Lil’ Seb’s joints.  “You don’t want to get anything jammed in his gears.”

Terezi paused, her fingers tracing the edge of the metal plate just above the gears.  She leaned forward, pressed her nose against Lil’ Seb’s forehead, and licked his ruby glasses, drawing her tongue up along the polished bronze.

“Um...” Jane said, watching with shock and a good amount of disgust.

“Neat!” Terezi finally said with a laugh that sounded much too similar to a cackle.  “Do they pass out robots in New Town?”

“Uh...no...my friend made it for me, due to the dangerous nature of my work...” Jane said, still unnerved.

“I like it.  It can come, too.”

“...Thank you?”

Terezi straightened up and turned around to again stroll down the street as though she had not interrupted her journey in the first place.  Jane followed, suppressing her growing sense of bewilderment and discomfort.  The sky grew darker as Terezi led Jane down twisting roads and through sinister alleyways, following curves and changing directions as though her blindness was nonexistent.  The rain grew more substantial, changing from a mist into a light drizzle, and weak gas lamps were lit at random intervals along the road, outside certain shops and residencies.  The light gleamed on the wet surfaces in stretched and dimpled dashes.  Puddles began to form, breaking the dark stretches of the road with sharp reflections of the gray sky.  The temperature dropped, and a thin mist wisped over their feet.

“Here we are!” Terezi finally said, halting outside a severe brick tenement building, five or six stories tall but only two rooms wide.  Jane stared up at the complex’s dark face, noting the occasional flicker of light that appeared here and there in broken windows.  Terezi walked forward to the door, shoving it open as though it were too big for its frame, and held it open for Jane with an almost jeering smile. “Ladies first,” she said. Jane hesitated, but, knowing that she had come too far to give notice to any misgivings, she set her jaw and strode forward, entering a decrepit hell of a home.


	5. Chapter 5

The hallway Jane entered was so dark it felt as though night had fallen.  No windows opened into the long, narrow corridor, and no gas lamps hung from the low ceiling.  The air was thick with humidity and held in the worst of the summer heat, despite the drop in temperature outside.  Behind her, Terezi slipped into the tenement and struggled to push the door closed.

“Up the stairs,” she said, grunting with the effort of squeezing the bulging door into its frame. “We’re in the attic apartment. Second door to the left.”

Lil’ Seb preceded Jane up the steep, narrow staircase, turning down another dark hallway to locate the next staircase.  The dim glow of his red glasses provided Jane with a beacon to follow, although the light did little to illuminate the glum passageways.  The dense air was difficult to breathe.  By the time she had made it to the sixth floor, Jane was close to panting, and the skin beneath her binder and the padding on her stomach was beginning to itch with sweat.  Lil’ Seb had stopped beside the door Terezi had referenced, waiting patiently for Jane to catch up.

“It’s not that much of a climb!” Terezi said, appearing behind Jane.  She strolled past Jane with a pronounced air of casualty, but, as she stopped in front of the door to unlock it, Jane noticed beads of sweat in the red gleam from Lil’ Seb’s glasses, cutting trails through the dirt of her neck. She located the key after a moment of fumbling and shoved the door open.  It, too, had swelled too large for its doorframe.

Terezi did not bother to light the lamp on the table when she entered, and Jane took the liberty of lighting it for herself, trusting that Terezi would not notice whether she did or did not. Sheets and cuts of fabric, colorful and clean despite their apparent wear, hung from lines that crossed the room, obscuring most corners and walls from the doorway.  On the table, another pile of fabric was heaped next to a small sewing machine, and garments in various stages of repair and disrepair hung from the backs of the rooms’ three chairs.  A squat stove, empty of wood, was directly across the room from the entranceway, framed by an assortment of iron pots and pans, all covered in grease and the charred remains of past meals. Beside it was a deep wooden tub for bathing.  The only other furniture was a bed frame without a mattress, which seemed to serve as a second table.  Underneath it was a pile of shoes and variety of knick-knacks that Jane could not identify in the dim light, and above it was a closed window, opposite the hallway.

Terezi made her way to the window, grumbling as she navigated her way around and underneath the fabric, hands outstretched.  The air in the apartment was not as overbearing as it was in the hallway, but heat still languished in the room, stagnate and dense, holding and magnifying odors that had no place in a residency.  Terezi opened the window, but the breeze Jane expected to bring cool air from outside did not come.  From within the sea of fluttering fabric, Jane could hear Terezi mumbling complaints. She took a tentative step inside, glancing around, and Lil’ Seb darted across the room to another window Jane had not noticed for all the cloth obscuring her view.  It opened to a narrow, dark gap between the tenement and the building next to it, only two feet across, which did little to allow fresh air into the room.

“Screw it,” Terezi said. “Let’s—“

Her form bulged through a sheet, and she struggled for a moment to disentangle herself, succeeding only to drag the fabric from its line and twist it further around her arms and torso. She cursed, pulling her arms free and kicking the fabric in the direction of the bed frame.  Jane watched, bewildered.  Terezi exhaled, collecting herself, and pointed to the back of the apartment.

“Let’s go to the bedroom. It’s not as terrible in there,” she said.  Without pausing to hear Jane’s response, she made her way to a door that had been previously hidden behind another sheet, tearing down patches of fabric that barred her path. Jane exchanged a look with Lil’ Seb, who hopped down and scampered after Terezi into the other room.

Jane hesitated at the doorway.  Her already meager trust in Terezi was diminishing at an astonishing rate, despite her conviction to refrain from passing harsh judgments.  She could not suppress her doubts about Terezi’s ability to be of any use to her, as either a guide or an informant, given her handicap and the condition of her living quarters.  Terezi’s disposition magnified her doubts and her general bemusement. And why was she in Terezi’s living quarters in the first place?  She could not understand for what reason she had been led to Terezi’s home, if indeed a home it was, or how this was supposed to benefit her investigation at all.  But, as before, she knew she had come too far to turn around and leave, especially with Lil’ Seb waiting for her in the other room.  She drew in a deep sigh and stepped over the fabric Terezi had left on the floor in her wake, making her way to the back room—the bedroom, as Terezi called it.

There was no bed in the bedroom.  There was, however, a door that opened to a balcony overlooking a short yard, at the back of which was a line of privies, standing as a discreet, unmarked wooden structure with several doors.  A thin mattress, if it could be called a mattress at all, rested on the balcony, covered in an old sheet and two or three lumpy pillows, all of which were growing moist from the mist that rolled over the rickety ceiling above them.  Across the yard, some unfortunate articles of laundry still hung, soaking in the rain.

Although the bedroom greatly benefited from the door and window that brought in a pleasant breeze, it was no more livable than the front room in terms of clutter.  Reams of paper, newspapers and newspaper clippings, great tomes that appeared to be official documents for some profession or another, artifacts both mundane and bizarre, and a small stack of serialized romance magazines and novellas were crammed onto chaotic shelving that covered the walls from floor to ceiling.  Bookshelves constructed haphazardly of cheap and readily-accessible materials, sometimes made from what appeared to be furniture that had been discarded for missing limbs or broken parts, held even more books and stacks of paper, so that the lower shelves on the walls were in some place completely inaccessible.  The floor, however, was kept clear of debris for reasons that were immediately obvious to Jane, although she could not understand what she saw.  An intricate web of lines had been carved into the wooden floorboards, reaching from the entrance of the room to the balcony doorway, spanning from one set of shelves to another.  Terezi was already sitting on the floor, waiting for Jane to enter.

  
  
_Image by[gloomy-optimist](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com)_  


“How do you like my office?” she asked with a devilish grin.  Jane looked around, mouth agape.

“It’s...nice?” she said. “Although I’m sure your landlord would be inclined to disagree.”

“He’ll get over it,” Terezi said with a wave of her hand.  “These tenements aren’t made to last that long anyway.  One fell down about five streets from here just the other day.”

“It did?” Jane asked. “Goodness, that can’t be safe! Aren’t there building codes and regulations in place to prevent that sort of thing?”

Terezi laughed, carrying with it a jarring note of scorn.  “I’m not even going to answer that,” she said.  “Weren’t you paying attention on the way here?  I thought I was the blind one!”  She laughed again, and the sound was so disagreeable to Jane that she felt her back stiffen in response.  She opened her mouth, but she found no words to adequately express what she wanted to.  The urge to return to New Town and never come back struck her again, but so did the overwhelming desire to find solace somewhere in the damning world she had entered. She inhaled a lungful of repugnant air and willed herself to be patient.

“I am not familiar with...the particulars of Old Town,” she said. “I would appreciate it if you were cooperative with me.”

“You mean patient with your hoity-toity expectations?” Terezi asked.  “Or gentle with your sweet naivety?”

A stab of outrage nearly prompted Jane to respond with a crisp retort, but she bit back the impulse, aware that her almost painful sense of disillusionment was making her irritable. “...Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never been exposed to these things before.”

“You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t find it in my heart to feel bad for you,” Terezi said, but she gestured to the floor.  Jane decided it best not to answer and took a seat with some hesitation.  When she noticed that it was somewhat clean, she became more comfortable.  Terezi waited for her to settle before speaking.  “So you want to know what a bunch of New Town businessmen were doing in Old Town. Have I got news for you!”

“I hope it’s not too terrible,” Jane said.

“Oh, it’s _awful_.  You’ll feel horrible.  But you are a detective, aren’t you?”

Jane released a slow sigh. “Yes, I suppose I am,” she said.

“So am I!  And we both know that truth trumps everything else for detectives, don’t we?”

“...Is that so?” Jane asked. Her mouth pulled to the side in a skeptical grimace as she examined Terezi more closely, searching for some evidence of professionalism in her scrawny frame and calculating face. As if she anticipated Jane’s reaction, Terezi’s grin widened, and she gestured widely to the room.

“Why do you think I have all these books and papers?  It’s all evidence.  My mother was a paralegal, you see.  She taught me a thing or two before she kicked the bucket some years back. She was murdered. Violently.  Well, hanged, actually, for snooping where she wasn’t wanted, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Jane, taken aback by Terezi’s flippant mention of her mother’s death, struggled to formulate a reply. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth as she glanced around at the room’s contents, brow pulling further down with skepticism that, in this instance, induced some amount of guilt in her as well.  “I’m sorry, but...you are blind, aren’t you?” she said.

“Yep.”

“Then...how exactly did you collect all of this...evidence?”

Terezi, again anticipating Jane’s reaction, shrugged and replied, “I have assistants.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “So, then...what is this evidence _of_ , exactly?”

“Crime.  Corruption.  That sort of thing.”

“And you have evidence of the particular crime I’m looking for?”

“That’s a bit more tricky,” Terezi said.  She leaned forward, and the simple gesture drew Jane in as well.  “You said these guys were involved in Old Town one way or another, right?  And you want to know how.”

“Yes, of course,” Jane said. “There were rumors of drugs, but—“

“Not drugs,” Terezi interrupted, and she dismissed the idea with an impatient wave of her hand. “Drugs are only a big deal in New Town. They're too easy to get here. Nobody cares unless they're trying to sell across the river. There’s a dispute here and there about quality, but it’s not worth spending a lot to smuggle something that doesn’t need smuggling.”

With a frown, Jane said, “But drugs are illegal.”

“In New Town. Only because they don’t want anyone setting up an opium den in the nice parts of the city. It’s easy enough to buy and sell, though.  You must’ve seen those elixir carts floating around New Town, right?”

“Oh!” Jane said, recalling the strange man with the face paint she had seen outside of the university. “Yes, I have.”

“That’s a good example of a popular Old Town business model.  The stuff’s sold as a sort of miracle tonic, but it’s basically just laudanum with a high dose of opium.  New Towners and New Old Towners buy some, get addicted, and keep buying. And it’s legal, mostly, as long as it’s sold as a medicine.  The cops might try to press charges for counterfeiting medicine, but why bother? It prevents upright citizens from wandering into Old Town for a fix.  But anyone who wants something stronger can always come here, and they do.”

“So...” Jane said, considering the new information in light of the New Town murders, “those men probably weren’t killed as a result of a drug operation gone sour.  What other sort of criminal activity could they have been involved in?”

“You want me to write you a list?” Terezi asked with a mocking curl at the corner of her smile.

“Actually, if you could, that would be helpful,” Jane replied, purposefully ignoring her sarcasm and taking the proposal literally.

“My handwriting is a little sloppy,” Terezi said, again with a jeering note.  “Why don’t you get your rabbit robot to take notes? Hey, rabbit!”

Lil’ Seb’s head appeared from behind a mountain of paper and disappeared, materializing again a second later with a blank piece of paper and a pencil held in its metallic paws. Without dislodging the precariously balanced stack, it climbed over and joined them on the floor. It set the paper down and looked to Terezi, as expectant as an expressionless automaton could be.

“It does take notes!” Jane said with surprise.  Terezi let out a laugh that finally expressed sincere amusement rather than biting derision.

“Let’s not keep him waiting, then!” she said.  “Let’s see...a list of things these guys could have stuck their noses into...counterfeiting, smuggling, prostitution, gambling, money laundering, bootlegging, fencing, bid rigging, economic espionage, document forgery, arms trafficking, organ trafficking, migrant trafficking, human trafficking, illegal monopolies—should I go on?”

Lil’ Seb wrote down all of the possibilities with both speed and dexterity, producing a list so neat it almost appeared typed.  Jane watched him write, growing disheartened as she reviewed the list.  “I suppose this isn’t the end of it, is it?” she asked with a sigh.

“Probably not. It’s a good start, though,” Terezi said.  “If they were businessmen, I’d say economic espionage or rigging would be a good place to start. Money laundering is a decent possibility, or smuggling...what sort of businessmen did you say they were?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What kind of investigation are you conducting?”

Jane threw Terezi an irritated look she knew she would not see, replying, “This was never meant to be an official investigation.  I have a friend who may be in danger, and I’m only assessing the threat level.”

“Oh, is _that_ it?” Terezi asked as if she had just received an answer to a question she had been trying to figure out.

“Is what it?”

“You obviously weren’t with the cops, so I was wondering what you were about.”

“Why was it obvious I wasn’t with the cops?”

Terezi’s sneering grin reappeared on her face, much to Jane’s chagrin.  “You don’t know _anything_ about Old Town, do you?” she asked.

Once again, Jane’s stomach sank with the disheartening realization that she was not as crafty as she believed herself to be, but the subject they were discussing sharpened the feeling. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Is there something I should know about the police while I’m here?”

“Yeah.  They’re in on it.”

“In...on it?”

“Exactly.  They aren’t going to start an investigation into illegal Old Town activities if they can avoid it.  It’s too risky for them.  They could be exposed.”

“Oh, hogwash!” Jane said, rolling her eyes. Her misgivings dulled, replaced by the conclusion that Terezi was being overly suspicious.  “Now you’re just getting conspiratorial.”

“Am I conspiratorial, or are _you_ naive?” Terezi retorted. “You know Eridan Ampora, don’t you, _Lady Crocker_?”

Jane paused. Her misgivings returned doubled in strength, even as she attempted to suppress them.  “Excuse me?” she asked.

“The Amporas have a longstanding partnership with the family who owns the most profitable shipping company on the docks, The Cobalt Shipping Company.  Probably because the same family owns the shipyards as well.”

“And?”

“And the Amporas have produced several generations of hot shot officers in the royal navy. The royal navy polices imperial waters to prevent piracy and smuggling.  Now why do you suppose a big shipping company would want to stay on the good side of an admiral of the royal fleet when the royal fleet polices piracy and smuggling?”

“Are you implying that Eridan Ampora turns a blind eye to crime for personal gain?” Jane asked, indignant.

“If you were engaging in criminal activity, who would you bribe?  I’d say the Chief Inspector would be at the top of my list, and an admiral of the royal navy would be up there as well,” Terezi responded, and her tone dripped with derision in response to Jane’s disbelief.

“And you believe the Chief Inspector is covering up these murders because he wants to avoid scrutiny?”

“ _Oh_ , I didn’t know he was trying to cover up the murders at all!  How _intriguing_.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Jane said.  Her expression hardened into a stubborn scowl, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I refuse to accept such scandalous accusations without proof.”

Terezi barked out a laugh and opened her arms to gesture to the room around them.  “Feel free to browse my library!  You’ll find something, I’m sure.”

“And am I also supposed to take it on your word that these documents are legitimate?” Jane asked. “I have no clue how any of these papers or books came into your possession!”

“I stole them, mostly,” Terezi replied with a shrug.

“You _stole_ them?”

“How else am I supposed to collect proof of corruption in the system?  _Use_ the system?  That’s a laugh!”

“I’ve heard enough,” Jane said.  She stood and turned to the door.  “Come on, Lil’ Sebastian. We’re leaving.”

Terezi’s lack of reaction to her announcement surprised Jane, but she withheld any indication of her surprise as she crossed the room.  She heard nothing from Terezi until she reached the door, at which point Terezi released a small humph.  “Lady Jane Crocker, born as the oldest daughter in the Crocker-Egbert family, the second oldest child in the Crocker-Egbert-Harley-English family, granddaughter of the Grand Duchess Peixes, which makes you directly related to the throne,” she recited as if from memory.  Jane froze and looked over her shoulder.  Terezi tapped her walking cane against the floor slowly and deliberately, using her knee as a fulcrum.  “You began your career as a detective three years ago with the Midnight City Hall Embezzlement Case, and you’ve since earned a notable reputation with cases such as the Missing Child of Central Square and the Art Theft Scandal.  Your level-headedness and stalwart skepticism make you a natural fit for detective work, as stated in the December 14th _New Town Times_ from last year. I can see now why they’d call you a skeptic, but that’s not a bad thing in itself.  I just always thought you seemed like a good person. I thought you’d care about the sickening injustice that takes place every day in this part of the city, given all the hype I’ve heard about you as a detective role model for the masses. But you’re really just like all the other rich assholes in New Town, aren’t you?  ‘Let them eat cake,’ so they say.”

Jane stared at Terezi, lips parted, as she processed the unsettling declaration.  Although she had read the article to which Terezi was referring, she had not realized her own reputation preceded her so widely, certainly not this far into Old Town.  It was flattering but in many ways frightening as well. She had not meant to come into Old Town, and she was not properly equipped to meet the challenges Old Town promised to present to her—indeed, she could hardly meet the challenges she had already been presented.  She did care about the sickening injustices she saw, but she had no means to address them constructively.  Yet she recognized without prompting that she had done nothing yet to try.  Her only goal initially was to uncover enough evidence of Dirk Strider’s safety to put her concerns to rest.  Was it truly fair of her, now that she was involved beyond any shadow of a doubt, to ignore the needs of every other individual she met and return to her home in New Town, tucked away in her lavish town house were she could forget everything she had seen without fear or consequence? She did not want to be another rich asshole who disregarded the suffering of so many others. Almost unwittingly, she turned away from the door and back to the center of the room.

“I’ll ask you again, Detective Crocker,” Terezi said as she heard the slight shuffle of Jane’s feet, “what kind of investigation are you conducting?”

Jane sighed and said, “Shucks, buster, you really know how to lay on the guilt.”

Terezi laughed in a manner that sounded similar to a cackle.  “You learn how to—“

A sound in the adjoining room interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.  The voices of two individuals, one curt and feminine and the other loud and masculine, cut through the closed door as though the wood were made of paper.  The male voice snapped out a number of sharp complaints, which, given the soothing phrases the woman murmured as he spoke, were directed towards the empty void of general discontentment rather than at any particular person.  They shuffled around the living room for a brief moment before exiting again out the front door.

“My roommates,” Terezi offered as an explanation before Jane could ask.  “What were we talking about?”

“I believe you were going to tell me more about the illicit activities in Old Town regarding the police and other figures of authority,” Jane said.  “Or, if you weren’t, I would like it if you did. I’m still not buying it at face value, but I’ll listen while you try to convince me.”

“Right!” Terezi said. She gestured again for Jane to sit, and Jane lowered herself to the floor.  Outside, the voices of Terezi’s roommates rose above the light patter of drizzling rain as they entered the yard behind the tenement, and the sound of a water pump joined them shortly after.  Terezi grimaced and continued.  “There’s an idea that Old Town is this den of crime tearing itself apart—that the lower class is a class of criminals waiting for the right opportunity to give in to their immorality—but that’s not how it is. Yeah, we’ve got our drunks, our petty theft, and our violent crime, but that’s expected.  Everyone hates everything and everyone else out here. Wouldn’t you, if this were your home?  We’re just trying to make a living in a place where livings are hard to make. It’s hard because the people running the show make it hard.  We have to get our money from somewhere.  Old Town is a blot on the map where greedy business sharks come to evade taxes, find cheap labor, and do their dirty work without getting caught. The people living in Old Town aren’t the ones arguing against stricter labor laws and better pay for workers in Old Town.  We’re not the ones with the political clout or advantageous connections in the justice system. We’re not the ones smuggling goods across the sea or forcing stolen children to work to death. I mean, we have a whole guild of thieves who sneak over to New Town now and then, but guess where the fencers usually come from?  It takes money to build a reputation.  It takes money to buy a couple of houses in the cove of a dead end Old Town street to brew illegal booze or open a flashhouse. Not much money, but more than what we’ve got.  You know who has the money?  New Towners and those greedy dickholes over in New Old Town who would swim across the river naked if they knew there’d be a place waiting for them.  And they get a _lot_ of money back if they play their cards in Old Town right.  You’d think, with all the crime happening in Old Town, the residents of Old Town would be a bit richer, but the cut our people get when they’re playing lackey to the villains in charge is pathetic. Your shady businessmen aren’t anything new to us, but I wouldn’t look here for the murderer if I were you. If they pissed someone off, you’ll find that someone in New Town, not here.”

Jane listened to the explanation patiently, varying shades of guilt, indignation, and skepticism passing across her face.  She pursed her lips as Terezi finished, musing on her final statement.  “But the Undertaker—“

Once again, the noise of Terezi’s roommates entering the apartment interrupted them.  The louder of the two continued to engage in what seemed to be an unending, elaborate monologue, and the volume of his voice escalated as it accommodated the added sound of sloshing water.  He paused for a second, during which there was a distinct splash of a large object submerging into a basin of water, but he continued his dialogue shortly thereafter.

“Give me a second,” Terezi said, standing with a grimace again on her face.  She slipped around Jane and opened the door. “Hey!  Keep it down!  I’m trying to have a conversation with someone important about something important.”

“Someone important?” the woman in the next room repeated.

“Yeah, so shut up!” Terezi said, but as she spoke, Lil’ Seb jogged to the door and slipped out.

“Sebastian!” Jane hissed. Terezi turned her head to give Jane her attention, and Jane said, “Um, Lil’ Seb just—he’s a mischief-maker, you see, and—“

“What the fuck is that?” the man said, followed closely by the sound of agitated water. “Is that some sort of freak cockroach?”

“It’s a rabbit robot, Karkat," Terezi said, deducing everything she needed to know about the situation. "Just calm down. It won’t hurt you.”

“A _rabbit robot_?” the woman asked.  “Terezi, what—?”

Jane rose to her feet and moved to the door.  “I’m terribly sorry!  I’ll come get him. Lil’ Sebastian, you better get your butt over here before I—“

“Who’s _that_?” the man, Karkat, said, and Jane finally got a good look at him.  He was a short, compact individual with rich copper skin and wiry black hair, and his rounded eyes and button nose made his pinched, scowling face seem almost comical. He was also stark naked, hanging halfway out of the bathing tub as Lil’ Seb peeked at him from over the tub’s lip.  To her embarrassment, Jane felt her face grow hot with a bright blush.  She averted her eyes as Karkat turned his attention to Terezi.  “You’re bringing strange men home now?”

“Calm down! She’s a woman. God, you’re ridiculous.”

Instead of calming down, Karkat’s face turned the same shade of red as Jane’s, and he dropped himself back into the basin of water, scrambling for a cloth to cover his exposed skin. “ _She’s a woman_?  Why is there a strange _woman_ here when I’m trying to take a bath?”

“You weren’t taking a bath five minutes ago!  She’s here on business.  She’s a detective, and we’re—“

“A detective?” Karkat repeated, his voice rising in pitch to something just short of a screech. “Goddamn it, Terezi, why the hell—Kanaya, hide the thing!”

The woman, Kanaya, startled and swiped something from the table, which she tucked into the bosom of her surprisingly gorgeous dress.  She made an attempt to keep her thin face blank, but the size of her eyes expressed her self-conscious culpability.  Her back was too rigid and her arms too straight against her sides, creating a picture reminiscent of a guilty child instead of a casual, fully grown woman, and her elegance and height only served to make her fib more amusing. Terezi dropped her face into the palm of her hand in a gesture of exasperation.  “She doesn’t care about your dumb perfume!  That’s not what she’s here for.”

“ _Shhh_!  You’re going to give us away!” Karkat hissed, even as Kanaya drew the small, blue glass bottle from her dress.

“Tell them you don’t care about the perfume,” Terezi said, turning to Jane.

“What about it?” Jane asked.

“We stole it,” Kanaya admitted.

“Okay, listen!” Karkat said, leaning over the side of the bathing tub toward Jane and pointing at her with a flattened hand.  His face was kept quite serious as he spoke, his eyes glaring up at Jane from beneath his lowered eyebrows.  “I work in the slaughterhouses, lady.  I smell like _literal shit._ All.  The.  Time. Do you know what that’s like? Do you know what it’s like to constantly smell like the excrement of doomed animals? _Do you_?”

“Oh my god,” Terezi said as Jane in her bewilderment stumbled over a reply.

“I—No, I can’t say I do!”

“If you were me, you’d steal a bottle of perfume now and then, too!  It’s the only thing keeping me from scrubbing my own skin off with steel wool. It’s not even expensive perfume, for fuck’s sake!  It’s the cheap shit they sell to the most horrible brothels in bulk to mask the scent of disease and despair that clings to the poor wenches who get stuck in those godawful pit of poverty and abuse.  We’re not talking about the _nice_ brothels, where the whores get their fair share of the cut and a little respect to boot.  Hell, I wouldn’t mind smelling like one of them!  They’ve probably got their lives together better than I do.  But no, we’re talking about the musk they slosh around the slaughterhouse slum whorehouses, or worst, onto the poor streetwalkers they throw out on the corners to fend for themselves against the drunks and disease-riddled beggars whose halitosis alone is enough to kill. I smell like desperation and destitution because I _can’t stand_ my own body odor.  If you want to arrest me for that, fine, but I hope it keeps you up at night to think about it.”

“She’s not here to arrest you!” Terezi said, the volume of her voice rising to meet his. “She doesn’t care what you do! We’re doing a murder investigation!”

“A murder investigation? Who was murdered?” Kanaya asked.

“Nobody we know.”

“Oh, good.”

“Then why is she here?” Karkat asked.  “Can’t a man get a little peace when he bathes in his own decrepit living room?”

“Fine!  We were just about to leave anyway,” Terezi said.

“We were?” Jane asked.

“Rabbit!  Come here,” Terezi said, and Lil’ Seb perked to attention, coming away from the bathing tub and stopping at Terezi feet.

“You traitor! You didn’t come when I called,” Jane said, putting her hands on her hips.  Terezi laughed.

“At least the rabbit trusts me,” she said.  She opened the door and pointed down at the markings carved into the wooden floorboards. “Rabbit, memorize this.”

Lil’ Seb looked down and entered the room, walking across the floor with an air of deliberance, scanning every line and curve.  “What is it?” Jane asked, watching Lil’ Seb do his work.

“A map of Old Town. Hand carved by me,” Terezi replied, and she flashed Jane a cocky grin.

“You did this?”

“I’m blind, not incompetent.”

“Of course not! I didn’t mean—it’s just, this isn’t just competence, it’s genius!  You know Old Town this well?”

“It’s all part of the trade!” Terezi said.  Lil’ Seb came away from the markings just as Jane became interested in examining them more closely, and Terezi took the automaton’s approach as a signal to turn away and usher Jane out of the room.  She shut the bedroom door and strolled past Kanaya, holding the front door open for Jane.

“Ladies first,” she said with a sneer.

“I wish people would quit saying that,” Jane said, sighing.  She kept her eyes up as she passed Karkat in the tub, but she nodded to Kanaya on the way out, offering her a small but polite smile, which Kanaya returned with a natural grace that seemed out of place in the stuffy, cluttered tenement apartment.  Jane stepped outside, and she could hear the start of Karkat’s complaint as Terezi shut the door behind her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter trigger warnings:  
> -Slaughterhouse and animal slaughter mention  
> -Human trafficking mention  
> -Human sacrifice mention

The rainfall was light but persistent, enough to soak through clothing only after prolonged exposure to the drizzle.  The gray sky had grown darker with what Jane assumed to be dusk, and as if to confirm her assumption, more gas lamps had been lit outside of tenement doorways. The winding street disappeared into the misted shadows, so that only the hazy orbs of distant lamps revealed the street’s twists and curves.  Jane pulled her hat down over her eyes to protect the lenses of her glasses from water. Terezi did not seem to be bothered by either the darkness or the rain, and she set off down the road at a brisk march.

Jane started and trotted after her, struggling to keep her pace.  “Where are we going?” she asked.

“I’m going to show you a few things before I take you to New Town,” Terezi responded.  “I bet you’re itching for a guide to lead you safe and sound back to your comfy house!”

Jane bit her lip, afraid to appear too suspicious about Old Town dangers but also concerned that any show of bravado would give Terezi an excuse to recant the offer in her scathing, mocking manner.  “If you don’t mind, that would be wonderful,” she said

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it. When we’re done here, you’ll be begging for a guide!” Terezi said.  She let out a disconcerting chuckle that made a shiver run along Jane’s skin.

“I don’t suppose it’s possible to hail a hansom all the way out here?” Jane asked.

“A hansom?”

“Um, yes...a hansom cab. The little carriage, drawn by a horse?”

Terezi laughed. “Maybe I’ll just flag down a motorcar for your convenience!”

“So, no.”  Jane released a sigh.  The air was cool, and her dampened clothing made her skin clammy and uncomfortable.  Beside the falling rain, the street was mostly silent, and their footsteps sounded out sharply as they struck the wet bricks.  After a short distance, Terezi turned off the street and into a tapered lane, which began their journey through a tight and claustrophobic network of maze-like passageways that rarely crossed paths with any wider thoroughfares. Jane imagined the narrow, tunnel-like alleyways felt no different for Terezi at night than they did during the day, but Jane felt the effects of darkness.  The lamps on these cramped paths were few and far between, and there were stretches when only the dim red light from Lil’ Seb’s glasses lit the glistening bricks in front of her.  The crimson glow was eerie and unnatural, and it did little to assuage Jane’s concerns.  There were few doors that opened into the buildings framing the paths they took, residential or otherwise, and the only time Jane glimpsed a shop or commercial establishment was when they stole across a larger avenue. Occasionally, they would pass within sight of a lit tavern or pub, from which the sound of rough laughter and shrieking merriment carried through the walls as though they were only centimeters thick.  Few other indications of human activity were apparent in the maze they walked, save for the occasional voice floating through a window above them, and Jane felt both grateful and concerned for that fact.

“Here,” Terezi said, her voice barely above a whisper.  She turned to Jane and gestured with a nod of her head to look beyond the mouth of the alleyway, where another, equally narrow path ended at the junction of three decrepit buildings, the entrances of which were shut tight.

“What about it?” Jane asked, speaking in a whisper as well.

“This is a rookery, a place for criminals to hide and organize their dirty work.  You can find all sorts of criminals from small-time thieves to New Town crime lords putting together schemes in a place like this. Sometimes you’ll find a flashhouse, where thieves exchange stolen goods for someone else to fence. Any kids hanging out around a place like this are trying to get in on it and learn a thing or two about the trades.  And the only way to find these places is to be led here.  Old Town is full of them.”

Jane listened to Terezi’s explanation, squinting through the misty darkness to examine the crumbling buildings.  She heard nothing from inside, and there was no activity apparent from outside. “Why are you showing me this right now?” she asked, turning her attention back to Terezi.

“Doesn’t it make it more obvious how deep the problems run here?” Terezi said.  “You think the police would ever find a place like this?  They wouldn’t. They don’t know Old Town well enough to fix the problems here.  That is, unless they found someone who _did_.”

“And that someone would be you?”

“And you, once I’m done with you.  They can silence me in a million different ways, but they won’t be able to shut _you_ up.  You’re practically royalty.”

“Well, theoretically...but I wouldn’t doubt they could find a way if they wanted to, given that I’m a woman and—”

“Quiet!  We’re being optimistic here.  Don’t ruin it.  And there’s another thing.  I know these places because I come here for information, and I’m _good_ at it.  This is why you need me.  Do you think you could waltz up in there with your fancy mannerisms and get anything done without incident?”

Jane considered the statement and sighed.  “No, I don’t believe I could.”

“Right!  So if you want to know anything here, your best bet is to team up with me.”

“You brought me here to prove your own credentials, didn’t you?” Jane said.  She was honestly rather impressed.  The method was concise and effective, and it certainly put Jane’s own limited skill set into perspective.  Terezi merely snickered and turned away from the crime den. Jane allowed her to pass so she could retrace their steps back the way they had come.  This time, she set a slower pace, for which Jane was grateful. “Are we returning now?” Jane asked.

“Hmm,” Terezi said. They could not walk side-by-side for how narrow the lane was, but Jane stayed close to Terezi’s back so they could converse.  “There are a lot of places I should show you, but it’s getting dark and Old Town is too big to tour in one night.  We’re not too far from the slaughterhouse slums, but even I’m not stupid enough to wander around there in the dark.  That’s where the highest number of violent crimes occur Old Town.”

“And that’s...how far from here?  To the east?”

“About an hour’s walk, and the stockyards are another half-hour’s walk after that.  Karkat complains about it, especially in the winter, but he would never live any closer than we do now.  He’s got some pretty horrible stories from the slaughterhouses.  They kill thousands of animals a day, all in an assembly line of butchers, and you wouldn’t believe all the ways you can die there.  Knives, machinery, huge vats of boiling water, diseases, chemicals...and they spend the whole day wading through blood, which is bad enough in the summer but nothing compared to the winter, when the temperatures drop below freezing.  Karkat just cleans up the gross stuff that falls on the floor, but he says he’s not surprised they have so many crazed maniacs living out there in the slums. You can only kill so many screaming animals before it fucks with your head.”

“Oh, uh...”

“Where do you get your meat?” Terezi asked before Jane could fully express her discomfort.

“We...have private butchers,” Jane said.

“Lucky you! We haven’t eaten much meat since Karkat started to work in the slaughterhouses.  The stuff he cleans up off the nasty floor?  They keep that.  People _eat_ that.”

“Can we change the subject?” Jane asked, beginning to feel rather nauseous.

“You sure you don’t want to know more about the slaughterhouses?  You know, I’ve heard they dispose bodies there sometimes, right into—“

“ _Please_ let’s change the subject.”

“I guess we can, if you _insist_ ,” Terezi said, and Jane could tell from her tone that she was purposely antagonizing her for her own wicked amusement.  “While we’re on the subject, let’s go over some of the Old Town giants.  Obviously the slaughterhouses, officially Midnight City Stockyards Co., are a huge deal over here, but they’re only the tip of the iceberg.  The slaughterhouses feed into the meatpacking factories, and then there’s a whole set of factories that process animal byproducts into stuff like soap, leather, glue, fertilizer, gelatin, shoe polish...I could go on, but I won’t. The slaughterhouses use water from the ocean, too, which needs to be desalinized before it’s used, and so the slaughterhouses have their own water treatment plants. They tried to get access to the river, but that didn’t fly with the wealthy families that lived along it at the time. In retrospect, that’s a good thing, because they produce a lot of waste that would have destroyed the city’s drinking water.  Anyway, the stockyards and slaughterhouses are big, booming business, but our _real_ interest lies in the connections the stockyards have to the railroads.  The railroads basically own Midnight City Stockyards Co., and a committee that’s made up of mostly railroad executives supervises the company. The company itself is run by a president appointed by the committee, but since the railroads bring the animals in and take them out, they really run the show.  As for the railroads, there are three major players: Dr. Scratch and his gang of thugs, the Midnight Crew, and the Zahhak family.”

“Oh!” Jane said, perking up at the mention of the Zahhaks.  “I know the Zahhak’s youngest son!  He works with a good friend of mine.”

Terezi nodded. “Equius Zahhak, inventor of the self-propelling motorcar.  His older brother is in control of the East Skaia Railroad right now. Apparently the younger Mr. Zahhak doesn’t care much for animal slaughter and didn’t want much to do with the stockyards.”

“To be honest, Terezi, I’m really impressed with your knowledge!” Jane said.  Her reservations about Terezi were fading, and she found herself astounded by her seemingly limitless reserve of information. “How do you know all of these things?”

“Oh, I’m just getting _started_ ,” Terezi said, but the light of Lil’ Seb’s glasses reflected off her sharp teeth.  “The Zahhaks have been falling behind lately, but Dr. Scratch’s thugs, known around here as the Felt, are engaged in a constant asset war with the Midnight Crew.  That whole scene is a shit show with no end in sight.  Lately, the Zahhaks have been caught in the crossfire, but _they_ ’ _ve_ gotten help from a different part of town.  The Cobalt Shipping Company, which I mentioned earlier, has been in cahoots with the Zahhaks, allowing the Zahhaks to use the resources they’ve amassed with their shipyards to build newer and better locomotives.”

“They have?” Jane asked with a note of dismay.  Terezi heard her concern.

“Is that a problem?”

Jane bit her lip. “It’s just that you made the Cobalt Shipping Company sound so awful before, and, well...”

“They are awful. The company is run by two sisters, Vriska and Aranea Serket, and they do just about anything they can to get involved in every important thing in Midnight City.  They’re as bad as pirates, the way they smuggle goods, and they’ve got both the royal navy and the police force wrapped around their fingers. You’ve probably seen them around, am I right?”

“Yes, you are.” Jane knew enough about the Serkets.  When she had first met the sisters, she thought them to be a pair of adventuresses—beautiful, talented young women who entertain and escort affluent men to social events during the social seasons.  They both kept abreast of the newest fashion trends from the continent, and they spoke with a sort of flippant confidence that was considered too forward for someone of Jane’s class.  Now that it was brought to her attention, she did notice that the younger, Vriska, was often found with Eridan Ampora at social events.  The older, on the other hand...  “My cousin, Jake, was rather taken with the older Serket once, before he left on his journey,” Jane said.  “But, you’re right, she’s commonly seen with the Admiral Ampora.”

“If I had my way, you’d shoot them both the next time you saw them.  Not only do they smuggle, cheat, lie, and murder, but they’re also known for using slave labor in their shipyards.  They’re ruthless, cutthroat villains, but they know how to cover their own asses.”

“And you said they’re affiliated with the Zahhaks?”

“Yup.”

Jane sighed. “Well, as well-informed as you are, I supposed you’ve heard of my younger brother’s recent invention, the Windything3000?”

“Sure have!”

“He worked with the younger Zahhak to develop it.  I’m sure John would never use stolen goods or slave labor, but...I’m afraid my own family may be involved in all of this!”

Terezi let out a barking laugh.  “You can say that again!  I wouldn’t worry about your brother, though.  Equius Zahhak is doing fine with his automobile designs, even without any Serket help. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became more successful than his brother here soon!  It’s your grandmother I would worry about.”

“My grandmother?” Jane asked, taken aback.  “The Grand Duchess?”

“Who else?” Terezi said. “She’s in cahoots with the Serkets as well, unsurprisingly.  They make all the war ships in the royal navy, so why wouldn’t she be? I hear she has a thing for imperialism.”

Jane could hardly stutter out a reply.  “But...no, that can’t be true!  My grandmother is very adamant that we not receive income from anything but our land—“

“Which, if she was covering up all sorts of seedy dealings, would make perfect sense,” Terezi interrupted. “She endorses all sorts of horrible shit here in Old Town.  She’s a trafficking queen!  She provides dens and warehouses all over the city so others can traffic goods and people, and the money’s laundered right back to her through a web of concealed pathways. There’s also word on the street that she funds some of the gruesome secret societies that skulk around, just to keep Old Town in a state of terror.  I can’t say much about that, though.  They keep their secrets well.”

“I...” Jane said, at a loss for words.  As much as she found Terezi’s general knowledge impressive, she couldn’t entertain these particular accusations. The idea of it, the whole idea, was just far too sinister for Jane to weave so closely into her own life.  It went against everything she had known growing up. Yet the names and fact Terezi had mentioned that Jane could validate were all correct, so she knew Terezi wasn’t simply reciting lies for her benefit. Unable to accommodate the most recent piece of information she had received at the moment, Jane left it to be contemplated later and said instead, “Secret societies?”

“Like I said, I don’t know much about that.  It’s not really my area of expertise.  The mumbo-jumbo mystic stuff is beyond me.  I do know for a fact they perform human sacrifices, since the Undertaker receives some of the bodies after the rituals.  She sells them to the university for big bucks.  Medical students need to study something.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jane said. “But _human sacrifices?_   The Undertaker deals with those, too?”

Terezi shrugged. “It’s probably easier than digging up the corpses after they’re buried.  Body snatching is hard work from what I’ve heard.”

“Okay, I think I’ve heard enough for now,” Jane said, rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses. “Unless you have anything else you think is of imminent importance.  Are any of the people you mentioned likely suspects? We have all these people to investigate—my own grandmother among them, I suppose, if I take what you say at face-value—but how do we know which are involved with our ill-fated businessmen?  What if none of them are involved with any of them?”

“I’ll look into it,” Terezi said without any hesitation.  “Do you have their names?”

Jane withdrew her notebook from the pocket of her waistcoat and ripped out the page listing the names of the murdered men.  “Here,” she said, offering the page to Terezi.  “Although, um...”

“My roommate can read it to me,” Terezi said.  She lifted her hand so Jane could set the paper on her palm.  She crushed it unceremoniously and shoved it into her pocket. “Luckily.  Karkat can’t read, but Kanaya has had some education. I don’t know where I’d be if neither of them was literate.”

“Is that how you review your evidence?” Jane asked.

“Yeah.  She’s a good assistant.  And a good roommate.  She reads Karkat’s shitty romance novels to him when she’s not doing things for me or sewing.”

“Does she sew her own outfits?” Jane asked.  “Her dress was gorgeous.”

“Yeah, it was great,” Terezi said, and the sarcasm in her tone was so subtle that Jane almost didn’t catch it.

“Har har,” Jane said. “You know, at first I thought you were being spiteful, but I’m beginning to think you’re just a person who likes jokes.”

“I do like jokes!” Terezi said.  “But some people might say my jokes are a little...malicious.”  She threw Jane a devilish smirk over her shoulder, and Jane pursed her lips.

“Well, you might find this surprising, but I’m a jokester as well!  But probably of a more harmless sort.  I know I must have seemed somewhat uptight today, but I hope, as we continue to work together, we’ll be able to find a middle ground.”

Terezi laughed, and the sound rang down the narrow, empty alley.  “I’ll take that as a confirmation of our partnership!” she said.

“I guess there’s no reason to pretend we aren’t working together when we clearly are,” Jane said.

“Great!  I hope you know what you’re signing up for.”

Jane sighed. “...No, I don’t think I do. But I also don’t have much choice anymore, do I?”

“Unless you want your friend to die.  Which friend is it? Who’s in mortal danger?”

“We don’t know if he’s in any danger yet,” Jane said with a grimace.

“Okay, so maybe he won’t die, and only people you don’t know are at risk for brutal murder. Great!  Who is it?”

“Have you heard of Dirk Strider?”

Terezi paused, just long enough for Jane to suspect the gesture was made for dramatic effect, and she said, “The mad robot doctor?”

“Uh, well...that’s not wrong.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. That’s good to know. I’ll keep that in mind while I sniff around.  But, just so you know...he’s not free of Serket influence himself.”

“He’s not?” Jane asked with some alarm.

“I haven’t heard much about it for a while, but I know he used to work on Vriska’s arm.  You know, the metal one?”

Jane paused to sift through her memories.  Yes, it made sense. She could recall Dirk interacting with the Serket sisters when she first met him.  But recent memory produced no similar evidence. Perhaps that relationship was one of his past connections to Old Town that he had mentioned to her when she visited him? 

“I need to think about this,” Jane said.  “All of it. Would you be so kind as to lead me home now?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?”

“Oh.  Okay then.  Carry on.”

Terezi was able to cut the shortest path to the river, ignoring the snaking Main Street in favor of the maze she seemed to know so well, and they arrived in half the time it had taken Jane to find 413th street.  The rain was beginning to let up, turning again into a mist that diffused the cheerful lights of New Town so that the luminescent city looked like an Impressionistic painting of nebulous orbs and streaked streets. Looking upon New Town was a shock after the inky grime and poverty of Old Town.  Even as her tension lessened with relief, Jane felt her heart sink. The contrast was stark and disturbing.

“I think I can make it from here,” she said to Terezi as they approached the bridge.  “Thank you.”

“I’m still going to follow you to your house,” Terezi said.

“You’re...what?”

“What if I need to contact you?  Obviously I have to know where you live.”

“Ah,” Jane said for lack of a better answer.  “I guess...that does make sense!  Okay. In that case, I’ll take the lead.”

Jane tried not to feel self-conscious as she led Terezi to her house, but the black grime covering her skin was more apparent in the bright New Town lights than it had been in Old Town.  Terezi was appropriate in Old Town, but something fundamental about her, something in her manner or her dress, made her a blot against New Town scenery.  Jane did not want to think about Terezi from that perspective, to judge her with a New Town eye, but she found herself faltering nonetheless.  Guilt crept back into her mind.  Was it so easy to forget herself once she was reintroduced to the wealth and privilege she had known all her life?  Had she not grown as an individual at all?  But she reminded herself that she had only been into Old Town for one day.  Her reeducation had just begun.  And for the first time, she found herself trusting Terezi as her new mentor and—dare she believe it—partner. 


	7. Chapter 7

The rain continued in sporadic showers for the next three days, during which Jane found every minutia of information she could locate on Old Town’s most prominent factories, businesses, and organizations, sifting through public records and newspapers in New Town’s grandiose library and even risking a visit to the police station to check reports of criminal activity.  She was dismayed to find that everything Terezi had said that could be substantiated by these means was legitimate, which made Terezi’s other assertions more credible than Jane liked.  She could hardly stand to entertain the thought that her own grandmother could have a place in the criminal underworld Terezi had described to her. She had known the Grand Duchess supported the empire’s expansion with a passion remarkable enough to earn her a reputation, but nobody considered her attitude to be anything but appropriate and patriotic.  Indeed, her brand of imperialistic fervor was common among Jane’s peers, and Jane never thought to question it before.  Now, she had plenty of reasons to reconsider.  The idea of humans kidnapped from their homelands and smuggled through Old Town to factories or other horrible, unthinkable places changed her mind.  She had heard of such a thing before, but never had it been so raw and immediate to her own life.  She refused to believe on word alone that her grandmother engaged in such horrible activities, but Terezi’s proven credibility gnawed at her resolve.  The fear that her grandmother could be facilitating such a grim trade kept her up at night and made the daily chore of attending social events more taxing than it had ever been.

Lady Leijon did not begrudge her missing her dinner party, but Jane was careful to honor her social obligations the next few days for fear of exciting suspicion.  She could not bring herself to answer questions about her absence, even to John.  The details of the affair begged confidentiality, and Jane was concerned any mention of the things she had done or heard in Old Town would alert someone inauspicious to her investigation.  It was unlikely, but the fear hounded her nonetheless.  If her investigation was uncovered and she was found to be incorrect, the mark on her career would be damning.  The doubt persisted that Terezi was exaggerating, turning her onto a false trail either for her own amusement or due to some grand, conspiratorial illusions.  Jane generally welcomed doubt and skepticism in her work, and she would be glad, particularly in this instance, to be proven wrong.  But the fact that she entertained Terezi's insinuations at all, regardless of her skepticism, was enough to severely mar her social status if her suspicions were discovered before she could dispel them. Her peers would be insulted beyond repair.  And, should the investigation be uncovered prematurely to someone who _was_ engaging in the activities Terezi mentioned...an entirely different problem would be created, and Jane had no doubt it would be dangerous.

As if the stress of secrecy were not enough to preoccupy her during her social obligations, Jane found herself made uncomfortable by another personal trial that newly plagued her. New Town seemed to glitter with a hitherto unseen shimmer now that she had experienced first-hand the ills of Old Town.  The luxurious parlors, the elegant dresses, feasts of the highest quality meats and desserts, motorcars and illuminated avenues, all of it seemed to be an existence made of gold and ivory, pearl and gemstone, a world fashioned from the finest cuts of reality decorated and arranged as perfectly as a dream.  Jane’s life had been nothing but this splendor for years and years, and she had truly noticed none of it.  She breathed it, bathed in it, until only the minor failures of paradise, the occasional fracture in its gilded surface, caught her attention.  She was blinded to the brilliance of her own life.  Now, the fractures she had looked on with such a critical eye seemed nothing compared to the fissure exposing the rot beneath.  The golden surface gleamed with a new radiance in comparison to what lie hidden below it.  How lavish her life was!  How extravagant! Yet it was nothing but an illusion constructed on layers and layers of labor and insensitivity, verisimilitude functioning as a socially sanctioned lifestyle.  And she had never fully understood until now.  She wished, in some parts of her mind, that she had never become cognizant of any of the splendor at all, because she found herself enjoying it less now that she knew how it fit into the grander scheme of things. The dishes she was served at dinner parties reminded her of Terezi’s descriptions of the slaughterhouses. The perfume she smelled reminded her of Karkat’s outburst.  The spacious homes, temporary housing for most noble families who spend half the year at their country estates, brought to mind crumbling tenements that threatened to collapse onto their residents.  And Terezi’s admonishment—that she had been willing to turn away from the whole affair—sat heavily in her heart.  She wanted badly to be a good person.  She wanted to stay true to her code of morals and her vision as a detective.  What she had learned hurt her, frightened and disturbed her until she wanted nothing more but to dispel the memory, but, as a detective and a decent human being, what choice did she have but to endure and strive to make a difference, however she could?

On the fourth day after her trip to Old Town, just after breakfast, the doorbell rang and Jane’s butler announced the presence of two visitors, both of whom seemed, in his words, “unfit to enter.”  Jane bid him to let them in.  She was glad to find Terezi in her parlor, accompanied by Roxy, to her surprise.  The past four days had been agony for Jane, and she swept into the room eagerly.

“Goodness, I was going plum crazy waiting for you to call!” she said with a light laugh. “Have you heard any news?”

“I have a thing or two,” Terezi said.  “But you aren’t going to like it.  So, before we talk about that stuff, I’m going to turn you over to Roxy.”

Jane glanced at Roxy and smiled with some uncertainty.  “While I am excited to see you again, Roxy,” she said, and she turned her attention back to Terezi, “I think I would rather not wait all day worrying about news you apparently think I won’t like!”

“Too bad,” Terezi said. “Roxy thinks she can help us with our investigation, and I want to see what we hear before I present my findings.”

“Don’t you worry, Janey, I got you covered!” Roxy said with a wink.  “I’ve got a _hells_ of credible source who knows all sorts of secret shit about stuff you’re not going to hear anywhere else!”

“Do you?” Jane asked with a note of surprise.  “Who?”

“My sister!”

“Ah,” Jane said. She did not want to sound skeptical, but she could hardly help it.  Whenever someone introduced a personal relation of theirs as a credible source, Jane found that a level of biased exaggeration was usually involved, and Roxy struck her as exactly the sort.

“It’s worth a try,” Terezi said, almost as if she could sense the exact nature of Jane’s hesitation. “Leave no rock unturned and all that.”

“Yes, well, I’ll have to agree with you there,” Jane said.  “Okay, then.  Why not? I have no plans until at least mid-afternoon.”

“Actually,” John said, standing at the door, “we were supposed to go to a garden party for brunch, remember?”

Jane grimaced. “Blast!” she said. “Why do people have to schedule these things so early in the day?”

John’s eyes drifted from Terezi to Roxy, on whom they stayed for an extra second before returning to Jane’s. A smile appeared on his lips. “You know, Jane, you’re looking under the weather today.  It must be the rain we’ve been having!  And the way you’ve been overworking yourself with all that research and reading into the night...you should probably stay in and sleep.”

“Do I seem that bad?” Jane asked, touching her cheek.  She didn’t feel ill, and it hadn’t rained since noon the day before. In fact, the sky was much clearer than it had been, much to Jane’s relief.

“He’s covering for you, stupid,” Terezi said, prodding her in the shin with her walking stick.

“Oh—oh!” Jane said. John laughed, and Roxy joined him.

“Then let’s slip out quick before anyone sees!” Roxy said, grabbing Jane’s arm.  “Thanks, mystery gentleman!  Mr. Jane?”

“My brother,” Jane supplied. “John, this is Roxy, and this is Terezi.  They’re helping me to conduct my investigation.”

“The super secret one that’s been bothering you a lot lately?” John asked.

“That’d be the one!” Terezi answered for her.  “We’ll fill you in once everyone you know is in prison.  Don’t buy steel from the Cobalt Shipping Company. Don’t trust anybody. We’ll be back before you know it.”

With that, she grabbed Jane’s other arm and steered her forward.  Roxy caught on and helped, and Jane heard John say, “Okay?” as they pushed past him and marched out the door.

Terezi let go and took the lead, but Roxy held onto Jane’s arm as they walked through New Town, almost as though Jane were accompanying her on a stroll.  She was enchanted by New Town sights and chattered about various things she saw, mostly involving the electric lamps that lined the streets. “They have to be running miles of wire beneath the street,” she said, and Jane could sense her itch to find a shovel and dig them up.  The sky boasted a number of large, dramatic clouds that billowed upwards towards the stratosphere, and interrupted sunlight graced the city, rendering the lamps unnecessary for the time being, much to Roxy’s disappointment. Once again, Jane found Roxy playful conversation surprisingly enjoyable, and she pointed to the sky, where two of John’s Windything3000s were dipping in and out of the clouds, trailing white lines behind them.

“My brother made those,” she said.  Roxy’s immediate and exaggerated reaction compelled her to laugh.

“What sort of power source do they use?” she asked, and Jane admitted that she had no idea.

“He commissioned a rising young engineer to help him, the man behind the motorcar,” she said.

“ _Equius Zahhak_?” Roxy asked, almost squawking out the name.

Jane, taken aback, replied, “Why, yes, actually.”

“That rat bastard!” Roxy said, clenching her fist.  “That’s _my_ power source in those windy-whatsits! He’s using my ideas and I’m not getting a cent for it!”

Jane’s stomach dropped. “He stole your technology?” she asked.  She was not ready to entertain yet another incident of crime and corruption involving people she knew.

“Nah,” Roxy said, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief.  “We do a fair trade on it.  I got an assistant I picked up off Zahhak a long time ago, a squirrel-y guy with a lisp and some crazy red and blue glasses, and we’ve been working with Zahhak since. He lets me in on his mechanical secrets, and I share with him the arcane mysteries behind the electrical majyyks.  But if he’s making bank offa my shit I wanna see a coin for it every now and then!”

“Oh, in that case, I can talk to John for you,” Jane said.  “I’m sure he would be more than happy to give you a fair share of the profits!”

“You’d do that for me?” Roxy asked.

“Of course!”

“You’re the best, Janey.” An impish curl lifted the ends of her smile and she added, “Say, could you ask him how he feels about a more personal correspondence while you’re at it?  A classy broad like me could get used to a place like this!”

She turned and gestured widely at New Town.  Jane heard Terezi snort, but she chose not to comment.  She was in too good a mood to strike up a conversation about the particulars of upper class romance politics and the etiquette of male-female relationships, so she simply laughed and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

They had arrived at the bridge to Old Town, and Terezi let Roxy take the lead, her arm still wrapped around Jane’s.  Jane had no idea where they were going, but she expected to be led through the snaking labyrinth of Old Town, back to the area of Roxy’s bar.  Instead, Roxy walked only a bit up Main Street before she took a sharp right onto another busy thoroughfare.  The shops were quaint and neat enough to suggest a largely middle class consumer market, and two or three pleasant cafes and restaurants had tables for patrons on the sidewalk.  Although the street lacked the trees that lined most major New Town roads, the atmosphere was docile.  It was the sort of street Jane would feel comfortable walking down in the evening, although maybe not late into the night.

Roxy finally stopped outside of a small business, the profession of which made Jane’s face fall into a skeptical grimace.  A sign above the door read in large letters _Professional Fortune Teller_ , underneath of which was listed a number of means and modes of the trade that could be consulted for the customer’s benefit. Tarot, crystal ball, palmistry, chakra reading...mumbo jumbo of the sort Jane actively avoided. Roxy did not seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm, making up for it herself with the sort of unbridled excitement that accompanies complete trust in an amazing ability.  Terezi, of course, had no idea what the sign said.

“This...is where your sister is?” Jane asked.

“Yeah!” Roxy said. “She’s a fortune teller, but she gets most of her money from book sales.  She’s one of the most popular seers in the city!”

“ _Oh_ ,” Terezi said, and she laughed.  “Sounds good!  Let’s head inside.”

“Uh,” Jane said as Roxy opened the door.  A steep, narrow staircase stretched up to a purple door on the second floor, on which was painted a stylized eyeball.  Roxy walked up the stairs and barged through the door without knocking.

“Rose!” she called into the room beyond.  “I’ve got some people who need to talk to you!”  Roxy turned back to Jane and Terezi with a grin and gestured for them to join her. Terezi shouldered past Jane, still snickering, and Jane sighed.

“Watch out for the stairs, Terezi.  They’re steep,” she said.

The room at the top of the stairs had all the trappings Jane would expect from a commercial fortune telling business, yet even she could admit that the decor was surprisingly tasteful.  The color purple featured predominantly in the curtains, tapestries, and table clothes, and there were sheer lengths of purple fabric draped in certain places, apparently to emphasize other decorations or deemphasize the mundane nature of an apartment space.  Gold was another common color that glittered in small amounts across the room, woven into cloth and dangled from lamps as faux coins.  Jane expected the room to be dimly lit, but the morning light streamed through the windows, creating an agreeable atmosphere that was spared from manufactured mysticism.  An unnecessary number of unlit candles were placed around the room, but only one stick of incense was lit, which released a smoky but fragrant scent into the air that immediately brought to Jane’s mind a religious service at the St. Calliope Cathedral.  Multiple tables and dresser drawers were placed around the room’s perimeter, some short, some tall, many carved or painted, on which rested crystal balls, more incense, cards, books, lamps with colored glass, and other odd items. In the center of the room was a round table, draped in a lavish purple and gold tablecloth.

“Rosey!” Roxy called again, and a door opened to their right.  A young woman, dressed in purple, black, and gold with blacken lips, strolled into the room.  Her eyes flashed between Jane and Terezi, and the corner of her lip curled into a small, muted version of Roxy’s smirk.  Jane was struck by the relaxed control in her posture and the intelligence that emanated from her eyes.  Even though she resembled Roxy in many ways, Jane could tell from a glance that their natures were very different.

“Hello, Roxy,” she said, inviting Roxy into a warm hug.  “You really should send a letter when you plan to visit.  I would have prepared some tea and cakes. And who are your guests?”

“This is Terezi, who drinks at my bar sometimes when she’s trying to be sneaky, and my new friend Jane, a detective from New Town!” Roxy said, and she gestured to them each in turn.

“Lady Jane Crocker?” Rose asked.

“Oh, uh...yes, that’s correct,” Jane said, furrowing her brow.  “But I’m honestly perplexed as to why so many people seem to know me over here!”

Rose’s smirk twitched upward and something almost imperceptible changed in her eyes, but she answered, “Your reputation precedes you.”

“I guess it must!” Jane said with a nervous laugh.

“Don’t worry much about it,” Rose said.  “My reasons for knowing of you are legitimate.  I give counsel to people who keep your acquaintance.”

“You...do? Who?” Jane asked. She thought of the people she knew, but she could not imagine any of them visiting a small fortune telling business on the Old Town side of the river.  At least, none whom she cared to know.

“It wouldn’t be very professional of me to tell you that, would it?” Rose said, and Jane was relieved to hear a teasing note in her voice.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Besides, that’s not what you came to ask me about, is it?  Unless you're concerned about your reputation?” Rose asked.  She gestured to the table in the center of the room.

“Oh, actually, no, we didn’t come for our fortunes or anything like that,” Jane said.  “We—“

“Speak for yourself!” Terezi said.  She prodded her walking cane towards the middle of the room until it came into contact with a chair, and, once she had divined that it was indeed a place to sit, she plopped down.

Rose shot Jane an amused look and said, “I’m pleased to be of service.”

“Uh, but what we _really_ need is information,” Jane said.  “We’re investigating a string of murders, and Roxy told us you may be able to help us.”

“I’ll be happy to cooperate,” Rose said.  “But surely one spread for each of you beforehand won’t do any harm?”  She reached to a side table nearby and extracted a deck of tarot cards from a handsome wooden box. 

“Let’s do this!” Terezi said from the table.

Jane rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, fine.”

With the amused smirk still on her face, Rose moved to the table and began to shuffle the deck. Roxy threw Jane a wink as she slipped in the chair next to Rose, and Jane, sighing, moved to sit opposite her. “Before we begin, I want you to focus on a question you would like answered, an obstacle you’re struggling to overcome, or a point of interest or contention in your life. The more specific the thought, the better the outcome of the reading will be.”

“Do I need to tell you what it is?” Terezi asked.

“Not necessarily. It may help me to provide you with a better reading.”

Terezi thought for a moment, and a devilish grin appeared on her face.  “Let’s see about this partnership between me and Crocker.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Hmmmm...is it worth my time?”

Jane frowned, and she felt as though Terezi expected that response.  Rose nodded and began to shuffle the deck.  When she was done, she set it in front of Terezi. “Cut the deck however you please,” she said.  Terezi felt around the table until her hand fell upon the deck, and she cut it three times. Rose put the deck back together and spread the cards before her.  She took Terezi’s hand and glided it gently along the cards so that she could feel where they began and where they ended.  “Choose three,” she instructed.  “You may choose them at random, or you may seek some form of intuition to guide your choices.”

Terezi pursed her lips and furrowed her brow.  She chose the first card on her first pass over the line, the second on her third pass, and the last on her fourth.  She set all three cards in front of her.  Rose turned them over.

“These cards represent your past, your present, and your future.  For your past, you have drawn the Chariot.  Depicted is an individual on a chariot, framed by two sphinxes, one white, one black.  Chariots, of course, move forward and often carry warriors.  This card represents motivation, confidence, and determination.  For your present, you have drawn the Wheel of Fortune, from the Rota Fortunae, the wheel of the goddess Fortuna.  Depicted is a wheel, on top of which is a sphinx.  This card represents luck, change, and a new phase in life. And for your future, you drew the World.  Depicted is a woman within a garland.  This is a positive card, which is often interpreted to mean that the world is yours. It represents success, reward, and accomplishment.  I would usually instruct you at this point to examine the cards in order to derive greater meaning from the images, but since you cannot, I can provide more detail if you prefer.  Do you have questions?”

Terezi shrugged. “Sounds good to me. Motivation, change, success...I’ll take it!”

“And you, Lady Crocker?” Rose asked, turning to Jane as she collected the cards.

“And me what?” Jane asked.

“Your question, issue, point of interest or contention?”

Jane sighed. She was not even marginally interested in any form of superstition or fortune telling, and the whole thing felt like a silly waste of time.  She glanced at Roxy, who was propping her chin up with both elbows on the table, glee evident on every inch of her face.  Her expression made it clear that Jane was on the threshold of becoming a shameless killbuzz.  Sighing again, Jane said, “I’ll just do the same question Terezi did. About our partnership.”

Rose nodded and began to shuffle.  As she did with Terezi, she gave Jane the deck to cut, and she spread the cards in front of her. “Pick three,” she instructed, and Jane did as she was told.  Rose flipped the cards over.  “You have drawn the Fool for your past, the Moon for your present, and the Tower for your future.  The Fool,” she said, gesturing to the card depicting a young individual in a carefree position, “represents optimism, a willingness to leap fearlessly into new opportunities and adventures as they come.  It may also represent naivety or a lack of corruption.  The Moon,” she said, referring to the middle card, on which was a moon above a stream, “represents confusion, apprehension, and uncertainty.  Just as the moon has phases, some bright, some obscure, your life is bathed in shadows and illusions. You may need to rely on intuition to understand this card and its significance in your life, rather than logic or reason.  Although that may be hard for you.”  Jane glanced up at Rose, who lifted her eyebrow in a teasing manner before gesturing to the last card, on which was a rather unsettling image of a tall, burning tower struck by lightning.  “Your future is the Tower, which represents external change or upheaval.  We often build ourselves a tower to keep ourselves safe, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically, but doing so can impede progress and growth.  Yours will come crumbling down, liberating you.  You may be uncomfortable with this change, but embrace it.”

“Her spread is more fun than mine,” Terezi said.  Jane glanced up from the Tower card, which produced an unsettling feeling in her chest, despite her better judgment.  The cards were strangely relevant to her past and current mindsets, but isn’t that the trick of tarot?  Any of the cards were vague enough to be relevant to something.  Jane shook her discomfort off with a laugh.

“Would you have preferred a future featuring people jumping from a burning building?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“There’s no reason to be envious,” Rose said, gathering up the cards.  “You both focused on your partnership, which suggests you’ll share in each other’s futures.”

“Does that make me the one jumping out of Jane’s tower?” Terezi asked.

“Ooh, spooky!” Roxy said.

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works,” Rose said as she stood to put the cards away.  “You’ll understand, given time.  Now, I believe there was other business you came to address?”

“Yes, there is,” Jane said, relieved to be returning to the mundane.  “We’re conducting an investigation into a string of murders that have recently taken place near the university in New Town.  Right now, we have two possible motives: that these men were involved in something illegal and their deaths were retribution, or that they were killed by a rogue Old Town serial murderer with a taste for wealthy victims.”

“But those probably aren’t the only possibilities,” Terezi said.

“Well, maybe not,” Jane said, glancing at Terezi, “but they are the ones that the Undertaker suggested, given the gruesome nature of the crimes.  We’re looking for a murder who’s either very angry or very bloodthirsty.  Miss Megido told me those were the best possibilities right now.”

Terezi inhaled slowly and leaned back in her chair.  Jane examined her face, feeling suddenly rather hesitant.  Terezi’s pause reminded her that Terezi had news for her she thought she wouldn’t like.  Terezi, sensing Jane’s disquiet, said, “Don’t worry about it.  Keep going.”

“Well, um,” Jane said, turning her attention back to Rose, who was watching them both with an air of critical contemplation, “in any case, we want to know if you’ve...heard anything, or have any useful information?  Roxy said that you know things...”

“About the occult stuff, Rose,” Roxy said.  “You know, the really _weird_ things.  I mean, gruesome murder, that’s pretty much up that alley, right?”

Rose continued to reflect on their statement, her eyes sliding from Jane to Terezi.  She returned to the table and sat.  “Roxy is referring to my external involvement with many of the secret societies that exist in the city,” Rose said. “I’ve grown popular as a consultant on the occult since my debut book on western mysticism was published and circulated some years ago.  Roxy is suggesting the possibility of ritualistic murder.  Human sacrifice, if you will.”

“Human sacrifice?” Jane asked. Her interest was piqued. “We hadn’t considered that!”

“It’s doubtful,” Terezi said. Jane’s budding excitement hiccuped, and she looked at Terezi.  “There weren’t any elements of ritual in the murders.”

“Yes.  There would most likely be an identifiable element of ritual at the crime scene and on the body if the victims were used as some kind of sacrifice.  The murderer would have also likely left a sign or signature that would connect them to their particular cult or brand of the occult.  There are very few secret societies in Midnight City, no more than two, that use human sacrifice, and the Undertaker at the least would have noticed the signs and identified the society to blame.  I’m guessing that’s not the case?”

“No, it’s not,” Jane said. She slouched back into her seat in a manner that would have earned her a scolding as a child. “Shucks!  That shoots that possibility in the foot, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” Rose said. Jane perked up. “While the human bodies themselves may not have been used in ritual, there could still be the possibility that their organs, blood, or personal items were taken to be used later. As slim as the possibility is, it’s worth investigating further.”

“That’s true,” Terezi said. “But there’s just one problem: secret societies are secret.”

“Yeah,” Jane said. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about infiltrating a secret cult!  It sounds rather dangerous to me.”

“I can refer you to one of my clients.  Perhaps you know him, Lady Crocker.  Lord Caliborn English, of the waning House of English, descended from the venerated St. Calliope?  His family has fallen out of favor with the general nobility due to their decline in wealth and horrible mannerisms, but you must have heard about him. He has an absolutely terrible reputation.”

Jane grimaced. “I’ve met him. He really is terrible. Sexist, self-absorbed, aggressive...we haven’t invited him to dinner in years.”

“Yes, he’s all of those things.  He hasn’t come to visit me personally in a while, thank gods, but one of his employees likes to share chilly repartee over a cup of tea with me now and then. In any case, Lord Caliborn has reputed connections with a secret society, the Order of the Cherubim, and he may be able to help you learn whatever you need to know about the city’s shadowy underworld.  He’s not a particularly bright individual, but he’s followed the trends of mesmerism and, more recently, hypnosis and believes ardently that he can ‘time travel,’ all of which have supposedly earned him a wide following.  He also insists that he’s a misunderstood artist and has somehow managed to get a surprisingly large portion of the population to believe him.  As crass and detestable as he is in person, I still haven’t been able to divine how he does it.”

“And she’s a seer, so you know he must be a big deal,” Roxy said.  Jane couldn’t tell if she was being serious or sarcastic.

“Do you think he’ll be any help...?” Jane asked.  “Because I’m not especially keen on paying him a visit if I can avoid it.”

“He may be your best option right now, given your social status.  He’s more likely to give you time and attention than any of the other individuals I might direct you to, who tend to be more...private and elusive.  Lord Caliborn enjoys the company of a lady now and then, and he won’t likely refuse a woman of high birth such as yourself, given his poor position in your social circle at the moment.”

Jane sighed. “You’re probably right about that. Well, at least I can put my upbringing to some kind of use in this case!”

“Got that right,” Terezi said.  “Let’s hit the road and talk about our plan of action.”

She stood, and Jane followed suit.  “Thank you for the...reading,” she said, but she was sure Rose saw through her act.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said.  She looked at Roxy. “Will you be returning with them, or would you like to join me for lunch?”

“Lunch it is!” Roxy said. “Sorry, ladies, but free food beckons.”

“That’s fine,” Jane said, laughing.  “We’re just going to be discussing boring things anyway.  It was lovely seeing you again.”

“Charmed!” Roxy said with a playful lilt in her voice.  “And now I know where you live, so expect visits!”

Jane paused, taken aback, but she decided she found the idea delightful.  She pulled her silver calling card case from her waistcoat pocket and handed Roxy a calling card, which Roxy took with an apparent level of interest. "Don't mind the etiquette involved with this sort of thing. You're a special case,” Jane said. "But the hours I'm usually at home are listed. Feel free to call on Sunday as well."

Roxy grinned, flipping the card over to examine the flowery details. “It’s a date!” she said.

“Okay, okay, how about we actually leave at some point in the near future,” Terezi said.  She poked Jane in the back with her walking cane. Jane nodded.

“Have a nice lunch!” she said as she followed Terezi out of the door. 

Terezi waited for her at the bottom of the stairs so they could walk side by side.  “Now wasn’t that _fun?_ ” she said as they started down the street.  “Everyone needs to visit a fortune teller at least once in their life.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff,” Jane said, and Terezi snorted.

“It’s not my thing,” she said. “But we got a lead out of it, so who cares?”

“So do you think it’s a reasonable possibility?” Jane asked.  “You think there could be some murderous cult behind the killings?”

“Not really,” Terezi said with a shrug, and Jane sighed.  “I still don’t see why our victims would be targeted for blood and organs when there are hordes of vulnerable vagrants laying around Old Town.  But it’s better than nothing!”

“Maybe they need to fulfill a particular...element of the ritual?  Perhaps the victims matter?” Jane suggested, and Terezi shrugged again.

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“I don’t either,” Jane said, sighing again.  She paused and glanced at Terezi.  “I guess this means you didn’t uncover anything important about the victims?”

“Not yet,” Terezi said. “They’re all over the place. One had recently taken control of a textile factory by the slums, another had built up a pharmaceutical plant, another owned a packaging plant near the slaughterhouses...and none of them had any criminal record, no trace or trail of criminal activity, and especially not in the same trade or offense.  The only things worth noticing was that they all made it big when they were fresh out of the university and that they all continued to live in the university area.”

Jane grew disheartened, and apprehension ran through her body like a cold stream. “That doesn’t bode well,” she said, thinking of Dirk.  “It sounds like Aradia could have been right about the serial killer!  That means...we need to warn Dirk, or else...”

“Yeah, especially since there was another murder last night.”

“There was?” Jane asked, shocked.  “But I hadn’t heard a thing!”

“You did say Ampora was covering it all up, didn’t you?” Terezi asked, the jeering note Jane had come to expect sharpening her tone.

“Yes, but...curse it all. This case is going to make me ill!”

“Just focus on what we’ve got,” Terezi said.  “English might not be a _good_ lead, but he is a lead.  See what he can tell us.  I’ll keep sniffing around for clues.  I’m positive there’s something here I’m missing.  We’re both missing something.  I’m not buying that there’s some crazed lunatic who just happens to like killing young, inexperienced rich guys with newly acquired assets.”

Jane sighed and rubbed her temple.  “You’re right. It’s suspicious. There must be an explanation.”

“Right!  So keep your eye on the money, ‘Janey.’”

“It’s so much less endearing when _you_ call me that.”

They had reached the bridge, and a small, pleasant breeze played across the river, whipping Jane’s hair about her face.  The slow creak of heavy wheels squealed over the sounds of city life filtering from each side of the bridge.  Coming towards them was the clown with the elixir cart Jane had seen the other day, pulling the whole structure towards Old Town.  Terezi perked up as the squeaking wheels drew closer.

“Hey, you dirty clown! What’s wrong?  Are the cops sending you back early today?” she asked with a mocking sneer in her voice.  The clown didn’t answer.  He kept his eyes down, staring vacantly at the ground in front of him as if he hadn’t slept in days.  His breath came from his nose in short bursts as he worked to pull the cart forward. Terezi stopped as he passed them, listening with a frown on her lips, but he offered her no greeting or response.

“That must be a heavy cart,” Jane said, looking at Terezi as she listened to the wheels squeak away.

“Usually he manages to spit out _something_ ,” she said.

“Do you know him?”

“I used to. But then he went weird.”

“Weird?”

Terezi shook her head. “He’s probably high. He’s always been getting high, but it wasn’t bad until he got caught up with that elixir cart. It all went downhill from there. Dirty business for a dirty clown.”

Terezi turned to finish the walk to New Town, and Jane moved to join her, sending the cart one last look over her shoulder.


	8. Chapter 8

Jane was not sure whether it would be more tactful to make her visit to Lord English a business or social call, but in the end, she decided to take the more impersonal route and call for business.  She was not eager to reopen social correspondence with the infamous Lord English on a personal level.  Before she made the trip, she arranged with Terezi to meet later in the day at the Three-Eyed Cat to discuss whatever information the lead uncovered.  With the promise of that small comfort in mind, Jane boarded her carriage, Lil’ Sebastian in tow, and ordered her driver to take her to the English townhouse.

Unlike most of the townhouses belonging to members of the New Town peerage, which sat atop the gentle slopes leading up to the St. Calliope Cathedral, the English townhouse was located among the upper middle class housing near the river.  Once, the English house had sat near the Cathedral, which was built in honor of their ancient ancestor, St. Calliope, but frivolous spending, mismanagement of land, and poor social choices had lost them most of their fortune and, with it, their illustrious townhouse. Jane had never been to the English country manor, but she heard it suffered similar dishonors in the form of neglect and disrepair.  Like many of her peers, she felt that it was a miracle the family still managed to cling to their ancestral estate at all.  As her carriage pulled up to the English townhouse, Jane quelled stirrings of classist disapproval, reminding herself that scoffing at a noble afflicted with financial hardship was no better than scoffing at anyone else in a similar situation.  From a neutral standpoint, one which did not include the snobbish criticisms of a self-important aristocracy, Lord English was still doing well for himself. The English house was far from shabby, and upper middle class housing was both practical and comfortable for any bachelor, regardless of rank.  Jane kept that in mind as she stepped down from her carriage, commanding Lil’ Seb to be respectful of the driver while she was away.

It was unusual for her to approach the house herself at this point in her interactions with someone like English.  She would usually send her calling card with her groom as an invitation to begin correspondence. Given her business, however, she felt it was appropriate to request an immediate audience with Caliborn in person.  She knocked on the door and waited for his servant to answer.

A tall, willowy woman answered the door.  “Yes?” she asked with a thick accent.  Jane stumbled over her words, too taken aback by the woman’s appearance to formulate a quick response.  Greeting visitors at the door was usually a task reserved for menservants, who were typically dressed conservatively to avoid notice.  This woman, on the other hand, wore an elaborate green dress with a distinctly oriental cut, and her hairstyle had a certain flair that was both edgy and unusual.  She wore maroon mascara, which accented the disdain in her eyes.  Her presence was strong, almost hostile, but the sting of her hostility seemed not to be directed so much at Jane as the entirety of the world.  Jane swallowed her uncertainty and forced herself to regain composure.

“Hello.  I’m Lady Jane Crocker, private detective, here to speak with Lord Caliborn English about an urgent matter involving a string of murders.  I would like to ask him about the affairs of certain...occult organizations, which may be involved in the murders.  I heard that he may be able to point me in the right direction, given his, um...connection to a secret society, the, uh...the Order of...”

The woman stared at Jane as she fumbled to remove her notebook from her waistcoat.  Her face was set in a nearly inscrutable glower, with the force of her expression emanating solely from her cold eyes, which narrowed in a way that made Jane increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke. Jane flipped open her small notepad and continued, “The Order of the Cherubim!  That’s the one.  I understand that Lord English has particular interest in, um, mesmerism and hypnosis...and time travel...and I would like to question him about the, uh, specifics, of these interests, and of the particulars of the Order, and...perhaps get some advice on navigating the secret societies of Midnight City?  To consult him, in other words, for my investigation...”

The woman, without any change in her expression, held out her hand, two fingers pointed towards Jane. “Your card?” she asked.

“Oh, yes...” Jane said, scrambling to remove her calling card case from her other pocket. She removed one of her calling cards and, with some hesitation, slipped it between the woman’s offered fingers.

The woman turned and, with a glance over her shoulder, said, “Follow me.”  Jane started, surprised by the offer.  She had expected to wait at the door while the woman brought her card to Lord English, whom she assumed to be the only person in the house with the power to invite her inside.  Hesitantly, she stepped past the threshold and trailed behind the odd servant to a modest but well kept parlor.  The woman bid her to sit and left without another word, leaving Jane alone in the room with nothing to do to occupy herself.

Green was the predominant color in the house, appearing in various hues on the walls, the carpet, the furniture, and even the paintings.  Clocks also appeared to be a recurring theme.  They were small and large, some standing alone, some hanging from the walls, many more sitting on every flat surface in both the parlor and the hallway.  From them emanated a disjointed and maddening symphony of _ticks_ and _tocks_ , which did not carry the same melodious charm that the clocks in Dave’s home and workshop conveyed. Dave’s clocks somehow seemed to work together to produce a fairly pleasant sound—as pleasant as the constant ticking of clocks can be—as though he spent hours coordinating them to optimize their collective sound.  Jane wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case.  Lord English, on the other hand, had clearly not paid so much attention to his array of noisy timepieces, and they sabotaged each other, so that their _ticks_ and _tocks_ interrupted each other at disagreeable times.  Besides which, the English house felt empty in a way Jane could neither describe nor comprehend, which made the toneless notes fall flat and hollow. The resulting effect was a slow degeneration of the mind, similar to the impact of an isolation chamber or slow drops of cold water falling endlessly on the forehead.

Jane tried to sit still, calling upon years of etiquette training to lend her resilience against her restlessness and insecurities.  With the multitude of clocks surrounding her, she felt every second that passed.  There were no reading materials to distract her, no objects to examine, nothing on the table but a bowl of small, black licorice candies shaped like terrier dogs. Her mind inevitably snaked back to the case.  What would she do if the murderer were indeed a serial killer?  Would she attempt to capture him herself or go to the police with her findings?  What if secret societies were involved?  How deep would she need to go to find out?  Would Dirk be safe in the meantime?  What would she do if something happened to him?  He had refused her offer to stay at her house for the time, emphasizing his ability to defend himself.  Her chest tightened with anxiety as she considered the possibility of a violent, fanatical murderer attacking him for some occult end while she was out investigating.  Was it possible there was more than one murderer, if dark organizations were involved?

Her mind flashed to the image of the burning tower presented to her during her tarot reading. She did not believe in tarot or any other form of fortune telling.  She did not even believe in mesmerism or hypnotism, and certainly not in time travel.  It was all hocus-pocus, silly reassurances for people who could not bother to uncover the real truth through more practical means.  Yet the image of the tower sat in her mind, and the ticking of the clocks felt foreboding.  There were people who did believe in esoteric foolishness, and the small number who were willing to kill for mystical ends were more than real enough.  Jane didn’t believe what they believed, but they had the power to affect her life nonetheless.  Because of them, or perhaps because of everything she could not control in her life despite her devotion to practicality and pragmatism, she felt close enough to the burning tower depicted on the tarot card to fear it, even if she knew better.

After an hour in the parlor, Jane was almost compelled to leave, which was so rude the thought alone made her grimace.  But the sound of approaching footsteps finally broke the infuriating drone of ticking clocks. The woman reappeared at the doorway, accompanied by a pale man with a mane of curly black hair. Greasy paint was smeared carefully onto his face, but none of the mirth or humor that are usually associated with clowns was apparent in any other part of his dress, which was dark and decorated with uncanny accessories.  Jane noticed, balking, that black, wiry stitches closed his lips, spanning the full length of his mouth.  He smiled, lifting his hand in greeting.

“The master will not see you,” the woman said, and Jane was relieved for the excuse to look away from the strange man.  “The rumors that brought you here were made to defame him.  He will not speak with any visitors on those subjects.”

“Is...is that so?” Jane asked. Her stomach dropped with disappointment and a small amount of embarrassment, but something in her chest stirred as she examined the woman’s face.  Jane did not operate on intuition; in fact, she felt it was horribly unreliable and preferred to ignore it as often as possible in favor of evidence and logic. Yet, something in the woman’s icy eyes awoke some primal sort of discomfort in her, the kind aroused by subtle, almost imperceptible traces of sinister intentions in the face or body. Her eyes flashed to the man’s, whose disturbing smile adopted a wry curl.  Jane, feeling suddenly ill at ease, nodded.  “I will keep it in mind.”

“Follow,” the woman said, and Jane allowed her to lead her to the door.  As soon as she had stepped past the threshold, it shut behind her, leaving her standing shaken in the glow of mid-afternoon sunlight.

Jane boarded her carriage and, after confirming that she had her pistol on her hip, ordered her driver to take her into Old Town.  She was not suitably dressed to blend in with the crowd at the Three-Eyed Cat, nor would her carriage allow her any semblance of stealth, but she was too affected to postpone her meeting with Terezi.  She let the driver carry her to 413th Street before giving the signal to stop.  She and Lil’ Seb stepped down, and she sent the driver home with instructions to explain her absence to John in as vague of terms as possible.

She walked quickly to the Three-Eyed Cat, watching the street pass beneath her feet to avoid eye contact with any of the people she passed on the way.  Her clothing felt like an invitation for confrontation or, less dramatically, an insult to the poverty that surrounded her. She tried to exude confidence, and she was perhaps slightly more successful than she had been the first time she had walked down this street.  Still, the skin on her neck prickled and her face flushed with the heat of her self-consciousness.

The Three-Eyed Cat was busier than it was the first day she had come, most likely because of the later hour. She felt eyes fall on her as she strutted past other patrons to the bar.  Terezi already had a pint of beer in front of her, which was half-empty, and she sat by herself near the farthest wall, lost in thought.

“I’m here,” Jane said, sliding onto the stool beside her.

“That didn’t take long,” Terezi said without missing a beat.  She only jumped when Lil’ Seb tugged on the leg of her pants, requesting for her to allow him into her lap, which she obliged with a small smirk. “What did—“

“Janey!” Roxy said, appearing seemingly out of air before them.  “What’s your poison?”

Jane jumped and sighed. “Um...whiskey, I think,” she said.

“Whiskey again? I wouldn’t have taken you to be a whiskey girl, to be honest!” Roxy said, deftly preparing her a tumbler.

“I’m not,” Jane said, “but sometimes a little whiskey is warranted.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Roxy said.  She glanced around and leaned bodily over the bar so that her face was almost between Jane’s and Terezi’s.  “Did _you-know-what_ go not so good?”

“Yes, I’m afraid,” Jane said. She threw back the whiskey with a grimace.  “I don’t know what to make of it, but he wouldn’t see me.”

“He wouldn’t see you?” Roxy asked as she poured Jane some more whiskey.

“No!  His servants told me that everything Rose said was rumors and that he wouldn’t speak to anyone about them.”

“ _Oh, really?_ ” Roxy asked, and her tone dripped with cynicism. “Obviously they’re lying. Rose is never wrong.”

“I...well, normally I would give them the benefit of the doubt, but...”  Jane sighed and swallowed her second glass of whiskey.

“But what?”

“But they...oh, gosh, this just sounds so unprofessional!  They _felt_ suspicious. And if they were telling the truth, why did they leave me in that damnable parlor for so long? The whole thing stinks.”

Terezi, who had been listening with a neutral expression, spoke up.  “I’m all about trusting your gut,” she said, “but I don’t think we need to worry about that anyway.  I’ve picked up a trail, and it’s got nothing to do with any cults.”

“Really?” Jane and Roxy both asked. Jane added, “What trail?”

“I was poking around in the victims’ affairs a little more thoroughly, not just before they died but after, and I found a pattern.  It’s promising, but I need just a little more proof.”

“You found...a pattern?” Jane asked.  “A pattern in what?”

“Their assets,” Terezi said. “They weren’t involved in the same thing, and they weren’t criminals worth talking about. But after they died, their assets were bought up by the same group.  _That’s_ what we were missing. We were trying to find out what they were all doing that was similar, but what we should’ve been looking for was how their assets were connected!  And they weren’t before, but if I’m right, they all are now.”

Jane perked up. “So, you mean...they weren’t killed for revenge or some other weirder purpose, but so someone else could acquire their assets after they had died?”

“That’s the direction the evidence is pointing.  But, like I said, we need more proof.  And _that’s_ what we’ll be doing tonight!”

“Tonight?”

“Yep.  One of the guys owned a packaging plant in the slaughterhouses, remember?  I need to ‘borrow’ some files on that plant.  Obviously, I can’t sneak in there myself and get what I need, with the whole ‘I can’t read ink’ problem, so you’re coming with me.”

Jane’s mouth dropped open.  “’Borrow,’ by which—are you suggesting we break and enter a factory in order to steal information?”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting!”

“But—no, I can’t do that!  That’s illegal!”

Terezi barked out a laugh. “If you’re worried about _that_ , don’t ask me about my other methods!”

“Your _what_?”

“ _Janey_ ,” Terezi said with a mocking edge, setting her hand on Jane’s shoulder, “do you want your friend to be alive or not?”

“That—well, obviously, I do, but—surely we could get a search warrant or—“

“No time!  If the police haven’t noticed that a bunch of up-and-coming hotshots are dying and their properties are all getting bought up by the same giant, they don’t care.  Or, more likely, they don’t want to deal with the politics of this situation.”

“Are you suggesting...do you think Ampora...?” Jane asked.  “Wait, is it the Cobalt Shipping Company?”

“I’m not saying nothin’ until we get this last bit of evidence,” Terezi said, dropping her hand from Jane’s shoulder and setting it instead on Lil’ Seb’s head.  Her smirk became smug.  “This is _your_ case, after all.  It’s _your_ murders, threatening _your_ friend, and _you_ need to help put everything together, don’t you?”

Jane paused and frowned. “You’re just as invested as I am!”

“I got bigger fish to fry, to be honest.  I’m working to bring down the whole empire.  What do I care about a couple of dead capitalists?  They never did shit for me.”

“That is true,” Roxy said, looking at Jane.  “Less New Towners around here is never a bad thing.”

“But if there’s only one big New Towner, it’ll be harder for you to take them down!” Jane pointed out, growing frustrated.  “They’ll be more powerful than a couple smaller ones.”

“Which is why I’m here to help.  _Help_ being the operative word,” Terezi said. 

"But..." Jane said, trying to think of some reason to avoid Terezi's plan of action, "but I'm really not dressed to go sneaking into any slaughterhouses!"

"You need to be _dressed_ a certain way to sneak into slaughterhouses?"

"I just mean that...my clothes are rather constricting, and...you did say that the area around the slaughterhouses experiences the most violent crime in the city, didn't you? So it may not be the best idea for some who's dressed to impress nobility to waltz around without any care in the world!"

"Huh," Terezi said. "That actually makes a small amount of sense and isn't completely ridiculous. Luckily for you, I'm pretty sure we can swipe Karkat's clothes if we get him tipsy enough to distract him, and we have just enough time before midnight to do that! We'll just set him on a rant about his brother. That always works."

Jane groaned. "I was less concerned about the clothes than the danger! _You_ told me the slaughterhouse aren't a place we want to go at night!"

"Then why'd you mention your clothes first?"

"I, well...because that's what I thought of first!"

"Because you're fishing for excuses."

Jane stumbled just long enough over her response to realize she had been defeated. "I just—I think it's a bad idea!"

"It _is_ a bad idea, which is why I need you to not be a chicken shit," Terezi said. “You’re not going send a defenseless _blind girl_ into the dangerous stockyards all by herself to do _your_ dirty work for you, are you?”

Jane examined the self-satisfied look on Terezi’s face with irritation and an itching sense of foreboding, but she knew Terezi _would_ go on her own if she didn't come, which was enough to inspire some misplaced sense of responsibility in her. “...No,” she said, “I’m not. But I _strongly_ disapprove of this course of action, just so you know!”

“It'll be fine!” Terezi said with laugh.  “If we're careful. But sometimes we have to bend the rules to get the results we want.”

“I disagree,” Jane said, “but I know when my arm is being twisted.”

“I could twist it for real, if you want.”

“Please don’t.”


	9. Chapter 9

Crumbling tenement buildings threw moonlight shadows over tin shacks and makeshift shanties, which lined the streets and filled up the network of alleys by which Terezi preferred to travel.  Jane followed behind Terezi, tense with discomfort and dread as they edged past micro-cities of lean-tos that left gaps barely the width of Jane’s hips open for passage. She could see figures covered in grime sleeping fitfully in huddled bunches between the cracks in the tin walls, and sometimes a pair of hollow, world-weary eyes caught hers, which made her heart thud in her chest.  As they crept on, the tenements sagged and sank until there were more ruins than actual tenements.  The tin shacks invaded the collapsed remains, utilizing whatever walls and rubble that were still intact enough to provide shelter from the elements.  The air was thick with humidity and the pungent stench of rotting human waste.  Sweat ran down Jane’s back, soaking into the clothes Terezi had swiped from Karkat for her use.  Lil’ Seb stayed close to their heels as they snuck through the slaughterhouse slums towards the Midnight City Stockyards.

The packing plants and animal by-product factories formed their own small town at the edge of the stockyards.  The buildings were solid, imposing masses that stood in hard contrast to the unchecked decay of the slums leading to them, protected by a tall wall made of concrete, which ringed the entirety of the stockyards and only broke where the railroad lines entered.  A coiling band of barbed wire ran along the top of the wall.  The light of the full moon bathed the factory buildings in desaturated shades of blue and silver, emphasizing the dark and empty windows. The smell of the stockyards broke the illusion of total desertion.

“What now?” Jane whispered as she followed Terezi to the stockyard gate.  Terezi tapped her walking cane against the ground, thinking.

“I’ve never been inside,” she finally said.  “Which means I’ll have no idea where I’m going.  I tried to get Karkat to carve me a floor plan of the area, but he’s not as observant as he should be, so...”

Terezi turned to Jane, and Jane felt the uncomfortable sensation of her stomach dropping. “Do I...need to lead from now on?”

“Looks like it! Don’t worry—I don’t like the idea any more than you do.”

“You weren’t kidding when you said you needed my help!” Jane said, and she felt a small spike in self-importance despite her general sense of unease.  She rarely felt needed or even competent when she was with Terezi, and the knowledge that there were indeed ways she could be useful when working with Terezi boosted her confidence.

“Did you think I was _lying_?”

“Well...maybe!”

“I wasn’t. We need to get past this gate and find the Red Calf Packing Company, and it’s not like I can read the signs. Karkat said it’s along the third street from the gate, to the left, just at the edge of the stockyards. If we see cow pens, we’ve gone too far.”

“But...” Jane said, looking over at the gate.  Like the walls around it, a length of barbed wire ran along the top, and a large, sturdy lock closed it from the outside.  “How are we going to get through the gate?”

As if the question were a trigger, Lil’ Seb perked to attention.  He scurried past Jane and climbed the gate to the lock, appearing in the shadow of the doors less like a robotic rabbit than a large, strange bug with a glistening carapace.  He reached out with his hand and extended one finger, which expanded outwards and began to shift into a new shape.  He inserted the finger into the lock, and Jane gasped as it clicked open without any resistance.

“Sebastian, you rascal!” Jane said.  She grinned as he hopped down from the gate and ran to her, like a child desirous of praise in all but his expressionless face.

“What happened?” Terezi asked.

“Lil’ Seb found us a way in,” Jane said.  She stepped forward and removed the lock from the door, setting it on the ground near the wall. She let the door squeak as she opened it to emphasize her point.

“Nice,” Terezi said with a grin that flashed her teeth.  “Let’s get this party on the road.”

Jane closed the gate behind them before they set off into the maze of factories.  Although the buildings were old, they were well-kept and neatly organized along a grid, which showed they were newer than most of Old Town.  The silence was eerie. Jane glanced periodically over her shoulder at Terezi, who seemed to be following the sound of her footsteps. She wondered if Terezi needed further assistance traveling the unfamiliar area, but the force of Terezi’s personality dissuaded her from asking.  Jane focused instead on finding their way.  Three roads in, she turned left.  The stench of the animal pens was getting stronger. Reading the signs on the buildings, she finally came along the factory they were looking for—Red Calf Packing Company.

“It’s this one,” she said, turning to Terezi.  The silence of the stockyards compelled her to whisper.

“Is the door locked?”

Jane looked down the length of the building.  There were several larger doors that were clearly meant to open to vehicles for the transportation of goods, but the only typical doorway was located some ways down, near the other end of the building.  She jogged over and tried the door, and it was, indeed, locked.  She glanced over at Lil’ Seb.  “Can you do it again, little guy?” she asked.

He nodded and scaled the side of the building to a nearby window.  For a second, Jane was afraid he would break the glass to get inside, but he instead produced a thin, needle-like appendage from his finger and ran it up between the panes, lifting the lock that kept the window shut. He stole inside, closing and locking the window behind him.  Minutes later, Jane heard the lock on the door click open.

“Nice job, Seb!” she said, gathering him up as he pushed the door open.  “I knew you had some neat abilities! I’m going to have to thank Dirk for this.”

“Dirk?  The guy you’re doing all this for?” Terezi asked.

“Oh, yes, that Dirk.”

“ _He_ made the rabbit, huh?  So we’re saving him with the thing _he_ made to help _you_?  That’s great.” She snickered.

Jane thought about it and smiled.  It was the kind of irony Dirk would probably enjoy.  “You’re right!” she said.

“We’ll thank him later,” Terezi said.  “Let’s get a move on.”

The building had a particular smell that struck Jane the moment she passed through the threshold, and Terezi’s hand flew to her nose as she followed.  “Bleh,” she said, spitting the word from the back of her throat. “This place is a death house.” Jane had to agree. The smell of blood and chemicals saturated the air.  But it was a meat packing plant, so she couldn’t say she was surprised.

“Let’s get what we need and get out of here,” she said.  “Do you know where these papers would be?”

“In the office, probably,” Terezi replied.

“And that’s...?”

“How would I know?”

Jane grimaced. “Because you—well. I guess...we’ll go look for it, then.”

She squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the forms of tables and doors with nothing but the moonlight outside streaming in through the few windows.  A click sounded at her feet, and red light flooded from the lenses of Lil’ Seb’s eyes.  The resulting impression was unnerving.  The room was severe and austere, with metallic tables that reflected the scarlet light and smooth concrete floors.  As little as Jane knew about the slaughtering of animals and packing of meat, she could only guess what this room was used for, although the presence of crates and packaging material suggested it was the last part of the packing process. The room was long and narrow, stretching along the front of the building, and hallways led away to other parts of the plant.  She glanced down the hall nearest to them, which swallowed Lil’ Seb’s red light into a pit of darkness.

“Uh,” she said, turning to Terezi.  “Do you...I mean, which way should we go?”

“The way to the office.”

“Yes, but...there are several hallways, so...”

“So take one of them.”

“They’re...um.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re a little scary, to be honest!”

“You know what’s scary, Crocker?”

“Wha—“

“My dependence on you right now.  Let’s hurry it up a bit!”

Jane grimaced and turned away. Inhaling through her nose, she squared her shoulders and marched towards the nearest hall, relieved to hear Terezi’s and Lil’ Seb’s footsteps following along behind her.  As he moved, Lil’ Seb’s light cast shadows across the room, creating an illusion of movement that made Jane feel as though they were being followed.  In the hallway, her own shadow swayed and bobbed ahead of her, and the blood red light sapped the color from everything it illuminated.  She passed several doors, each with their own signs: “Pickling Room 1,” “Pickling Room 2,” “Smoke Room 1,” and so on.  There was no office in sight.

At the end of the hallway was another room that, like the room at the front, ran the length of the building.  Once Lil’ Seb had entered, Jane spotted on the other side of the room a metal stairway that led to the next floor.  She turned to address Terezi.  “Do you think it’d be on the second floor?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Uh, well...let’s just...check it out.” 

The stairs groaned as they climbed them.  The second floor was a long, open area, with three or four pairs of raised platforms and a corresponding number of tracks along the ceiling from which hung hooks for carcasses. The empty space yawned before them, absorbing the light and echoing back their footsteps.  There was no door that looked as though it would take them to any kind of office, but at the other end of the room, there was another set of stairs.  Jane inhaled and walked towards it, hugging the wall, where natural moonlight from the windows could comfort her.

She was beginning to climb the stairs when she glanced out of the window and saw the words “Red Calf Packing Company” splashed across the roof of the squat building next door. She paused.  The building was much smaller than the one they were currently in, only one story high and half the length, and it was nestled among several other buildings in a square plot of land connected to the plant they had entered.  Jane realized, with a stab of chagrin, that the building they had broken into must be one of several belonging to the Red Calf Packing Company, and that she had been so set on finding a building bearing that name that she had neglected to consider the possibility that the offices were located separately from the plant itself. Although it ached to admit her mistake to Terezi, she turned to her nonetheless and said, “I think we’re in the wrong building.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was just looking out of the window, and I happened to notice that there are other buildings that are part of this complex.  We’re probably in the factory part of the plant.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not _sure_ , but it seems likely, based on the evidence.”

“So, you’re telling me we endured how many minutes of blood-stench for nothing?”

“I’m not happy about it either,” Jane said, “but it’s an easy fix.  Let’s get back to the first floor and leave the way we came. I’ll be more careful this time.”

Terezi grumbled but allowed Jane to pass her.  Her cane tapped against the floor as she followed Jane back across the room to descend the staircase.  The stairs groaned like before, but before Jane could alight on the ground floor, Terezi grabbed onto her arm.

“What are—?”

“Shh!”

Jane froze and looked at Terezi’s face.  The red light from Sebastian’s lenses illuminated her from below, so that her face was cast in hard shadows, and Jane could see her blank eyes lit behind the red lenses of her glasses. Her eyebrows were knit with concentration, and her lips were pressed together into a hard line. She was listening. Jane glanced back into the room, listening as well, and she took an unconscious step closer to Terezi. “We’re not the only ones here,” Terezi finally said.  Her voice was an almost inaudible whisper.

Jane, alarmed, whispered back, “But I can’t hear anything!”

“They know we’re here. They’re trying to be sneaky. But I don’t know how they know.”

“They’re...oh, gosh, you think they saw the light from the windows?”

“Light?  You’re using a _light_?”

“Lil’ Seb—“

Before she could finish, Terezi poked Lil’ Seb on the top of the head with her walking cane and hissed, “Turn out that light!”

The light flickered off. Jane held her breath, trying to hear whatever it was that Terezi heard.  Terezi’s breathing had become shallow as well so that her sense of hearing could be heightened, and the constant whirr of Lil’ Seb’s machinery was audible at their feet.  After a few tense seconds, Jane heard it—the slow, careful placement of tiptoeing feet and the gentle swish of fabric.  Her hand twitched towards her pistol.

The low light of the room barely illuminated the figure that stepped out from the hallway. He was a squat man with sagging shoulders, which made him seem much shorter than he was. He had a gun held in front of him, poised as if ready to shoot, but his slow movements didn’t convey the sort of care that would suggest he was prepared to engage in any fighting. He seemed to be simply slow. Despite the darkness, Jane could make out the bright green of his jacket and the blue of his top hat, which, for some reason, read the number “2.”  As quietly as she could, she pulled her pistol from her holster.

“Don’t even think about it, lady,” someone said from the top of the stairs.  Jane and Terezi both jumped.  A smaller man, short and lean, stood above them with his gun pointed in their direction.  Even standing still, his hands vibrated with energy.  He wore a yellow bowler hat with a number “1.”  He smirked at Jane and twitched his gun towards her own pistol.  “Put it down,” he commanded.

Jane did as she was told, placing the pistol on the step she stood on.  “How did you—?“

“We know our way around the place,” he interrupted.  His smirk widened, and he added, “And I’m quick, so don’t bother trying anything funny.”

By this time, the other man had finally spotted them and had also turned, very slowly, to point his gun towards them.  “Well...” he said, speaking as slowly as he moved, his voice deep as if it had been pitched down.

“Don’t even bother, Doze,” the man at the top of the stairs said.  “Where’s Quarters?”

“He’s—“

Before Doze could answer the question, Lil’ Seb’s chest plate flew open and the interior mechanisms of his body rearranged themselves into a gun, which in the span of a second had already fired a round up the stairs at the man in the yellow hat. He howled in pain as the bullet ripped through his stomach.  Jane, without any time to think, dived down for her gun and fired at Doze. After three shots, he fell to the ground, dead.

Jane’s hand shook, and her heart pounded in her chest.  Doze’s blood seeped from his wounds onto the concrete floor, forming a puddle around his body.  She could hear blood dripping through the metal mesh of the stairs above them to the floor below.  She could hear her own blood rushing through the veins in her ears.  She had never killed anyone before.

“We have to go!” Terezi said, grabbing onto her and hauling her down the stairs.  She tugged Jane towards the far hall, which was the only entrance she knew of given her spatial memory of the room. “If they were talking about what I think they were—“

Jane barely heard the click before Terezi shoved them both out of the way.  A barrage of gunfire exploded through the air as they fell to the floor, filling the space with ear-shattering echoes of rapid-fire gunshots and the smell of gunpowder.  Jane scrambled to turn herself over, her mind white with panic, as the gunfire continued, growing closer as the wielder of the weapon walked towards them. She pulled herself to her knees, hot with adrenaline.  The gunfire finally stopped.  The person paused in the hallway, just beyond Jane’s view, listening for signs of activity.

“Come out!” he ordered. Jane looked at Terezi, eyes wide with fear.  The lens of her glasses had cracked.  Her breath came in shallow pants.  Yet Terezi’s face seemed calm and calculative, as though she was already thinking several steps ahead.  In the dim light, Jane saw her hands moving along her walking cane, revealing the subtle gleam of a hidden blade.  Terezi bared her teeth and screamed, “Oh god, oh _god_ , you’ve shot me!”

There was a cracked quality to her voice, a feral texture that mirrored hideous agony so well Jane felt her own heart clench with the fear that she actually _had_ been shot.  Terezi produced a jarring whine from deep in her throat, pained and raw, that brought the blood to the surface of Jane’s skin so she felt herself burning with terror, but there were no signs of injury on Terezi's body. She stood slowly with perfect grace and poise, making no sound but the chilling mimic of dying moans. The man took a step forward. With the speed and precision of a master fencer, Terezi spun around the corner and lunged, stabbing the gunman. Jane jumped as a single gunshot sounded, rattling her bones, and she heard the wet smack of blood hitting the floor.  Terezi stumbled backwards.  Jane was overcome with horror, her mind filled with an unending loop of the words, “Oh, god! Oh god!” as she scrambled to her feet.  She rushed to Terezi and grabbed her, looking for the violent wound she expected to find somewhere on her, but Terezi responded with nothing more than confusion. A light flickered on behind them, filling the hallway with a scarlet glow.  Lil’ Seb stood behind the body of the fallen gunman, the gun in his chest still pointed at the place the man's head had once been.

Jane looked from Sebastian to Terezi, whose face was screwed up into a bewildered grimace. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh my god,” Jane said. She let the adrenaline leave her in a heavy groan.  Never in her life had she felt at once so horribly fatigued and jittery.  “I just thought...oh my god.”

Nonchalantly, Terezi wiped her blade on Jane’s pants.  “Are you gonna make it?  Because we should really hit the road before the others come.”

“I don’t...I don’t know.”

“Come on, _my Lady_ , let’s go.”

Terezi ducked underneath Jane’s arms and grabbed her, leading her to the far hallway.  Seconds after they had entered, Lil’ Seb appeared at the other end, lending Jane some light.  They snuck wordlessly out of the door from which they had entered and made their way down the road, walking quickly with their heads bowed despite their glorious reintroduction to fresh air and natural light. Jane’s mind buzzed. She felt as though she would be quite sick, but she wasn’t sure what she was even thinking about at any particular moment in time.  Her head was slow to clear, and it wasn’t until they were at the gate that she paused.

“The files!” she said with a gasp. “We didn’t get the files you needed!”

“Don’t worry about that,” Terezi said, coaxing her through the gate.  “I got all the confirmation I need.”

“You—wait, you did?”

“’Doze’ and ‘Quarters’ are both members of the Felt.  They were guarding their boss’s most valuable new asset.  The man behind the murders is Dr. Scratch.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 3: Exposed**

* * *

Jane spent the day in her room, wrapped in a blanket and pretending to be ill.  A particular sort of exhaustion, existential in nature, had sunk into her body and wrapped itself around her bones, dragging through her nervous system.  Her mind looped memories of blood, gunpowder, and violent death.  It felt as though her pistol was still pressed against the palm of her hands, which sometimes went numb with the ghost memory of recoil. The melancholy that consumed her did not share the sharp edge of personal grief that accompanies the loss of a loved one, but instead invoked the emotional tenor of a powerful momento mori, a grave and morbid remembrance of the fragility of life and death's proximity to all mortal beings, which was so easy for Jane to forget when wrapped in the comforts of New Town.  In New Town, she had never had to kill anyone or to even fire her gun.  She had been safe and mundane.  Even the rush of solving cases and pursuing criminals had been, in essence, safe, mundane, and sterile for her throughout her career in New Town, and she had never wanted to be in a situation in which such drastic measures of self-defense were necessary.  But this investigation—this case she had never meant to take up or pursue beyond gathering basic intel—was dragging her down into a new, hellish plane of experience that was changing her entire life, internal as well as external.  Never before had she felt such a strong desire to give up detective work, despite all the effort she had made to earn the reputation she now had.

The afternoon passed, drawing a slice of waning sunlight across the rug of her bedroom. The ticking of the clock swirled into her thoughts and disappeared until she no longer recognized the sound. She took tea from her bed.

When the sunlight had reached the edge of her rug and turned golden with the coming sunset, Jane’s butler opened the door and stepped inside.  “Lady Crocker,” he said, “several...guests...are requesting immediate audience with you, one of which was here before.  Miss Terezi Pyrope.”

A number of conflicting emotions passed through Jane’s head so quickly they churned up a physical reaction in her chest, and she could not decide whether Terezi’s presence evoked more relief or dread.  She glanced at the clock.  It was six o’clock, late for visitors, and John would be gone for the night.  She could not remember what social function was on his agenda or whether she had planned to attend herself.  In any case, she had no intention of leaving her house, so she could offer at least some disjointed attention to Terezi and whomever she had decided to bring with her this time.

“See them in,” Jane said, turning to crawl from her bed.  Her butler nodded and left the room.  Jane stood and sighed, staring down at her bare feet.  The prospect of dressing was a chore, as was the thought of entertaining guests, but she could not very well greet anyone in her parlor wearing her nightgown.  She turned to her closet and picked out a simple dress that required no layers or any special undergarments, and she applied a small amount of make-up to seem less wan.

Her butler was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs with a sour look on his usually stoic face. “Shall I instruct the chef to prepare a larger dinner?” he asked with a crisp note of irritation in his voice.

“What?” Jane asked.

“You will see for yourself,” he said.  “I will have the maids ready the guest bedrooms and will return shortly.”

Perplexed, Jane turned to the parlor and peeked in.  Terezi stood in the center of the room, tapping her walking cane against the floor impatiently, while Karkat and Kanaya huddled around her with obvious discomfort.  Karkat’s scowl was disrupted by a slight upward curve in his eyebrows, which revealed his uneasiness.  Likewise, Kanaya’s back was straight and her eyes flitted around the room, examining details as though she had stumbled into an environment she was not allowed to enter. Her dress today was no less lovely than the one she wore when Jane had first met her, and the quality of the fabric suggested that she was aware she would be spending time in New Town and wanted to impress.  Around them was a small pile of ratty bags and old suitcases.

Jane rounded the corner slowly, still eyeing the pile of belongings at her guests’ feet. “Um, Terezi?” she said.

“There you are!” Terezi said, and she strode towards Jane with a pronounced air of purpose that struck Jane as immediately suspicious.  Before she could say anything, Terezi latched onto her arm and steered her into the hall, nearly knocking over a vase by taking the corner too sharply and bumping into a side table near the door.

“What’s going on?” Jane asked, straightening the vase and the table’s runner.

“We need to stay here for a while,” Terezi said.  She folded her arms as she waited for Jane to formulate a response.  Jane gurgled out a number of wordless noises before she could find her voice.

“ _Why_?  You mean all three of you?”

“Yes, all three of us!” Terezi replied with a hard frown.  “If you will recall, _Lady Crocker_ , you and I killed three members of the Felt last night, one of Old Town’s most powerful and notorious mafias!  You might be able to tuck yourself in at night knowing you’re not going to get stabbed in your sleep, but not everyone has that luxury when they’ve pissed off some big-time criminals.”

Jane pushed her glasses up to pinch the bridge of her nose, frustration blooming into a slow, pulsating headache at the front of her head.  “So you’re telling me that you talked me into breaking and entering into a really dangerous place last night, and now we’re in _such big trouble_ that you and your roommates had to evacuate your apartment?”

Terezi replied with a shrug. “Yes.”

“This is insane!” Jane exclaimed, throwing her hands up.  “When does it end?  I don’t even know what evidence we have to present in front of a jury, and now you’re living out of my house!”

“About that,” Terezi said, interrupting Jane’s outburst.  “I’ve found some holes in our theory.”

Jane gaped at her for a fraction of a second before crying, “ _Our_ theory?  It was _your_ theory!”

“And there are holes in it!” Terezi said between her teeth.  “It doesn’t matter _whose_ theory it is.  Are we partners or not? Let me remind you, this is _your_ case, and _I’m_ the one who had to pack everything I own and leave my apartment, which still has my map and most of my library! Have you ever tried to pack up an _entire floor_ and move it with you in a day’s notice?  I’ll bet all my meager possessions you haven’t!”

Jane was so irritated that she almost couldn’t summon the decency to feel appropriately remorseful. She willed herself to calm down and took a couple deep breaths, repeating Terezi’s retort to herself until she could appreciate the gravity of the situation.  It dawned on her slowly, but her stomach sank as she imagined Terezi picking and choosing which of the documents she had spent perhaps her entire adult life collecting without knowing when she might return to retrieve the rest of them.  She held her breath while the rest of her anger subsided and let out a deep sigh.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.  Tell me about the hole in our theory.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Terezi said with a sneer.  “The problem is that the Felt doesn’t kill the way our murderer does, and they never go into New Town.  So that means we’ve got a missing link between the murderer and the source of the problems, _if_ Dr. Scratch is the mastermind behind the scenes.”

“’ _If_ ’?” Jane repeated.  “I thought you were sure he was the one!”

“If the Felt is involved, Dr. Scratch is involved,” Terezi said.  She paused before continuing, choosing her words carefully, “ _But_ something doesn’t add up. Dr. Scratch is in the railroad business.  It makes sense for him to use underhanded means like murder to get ahead in the race for the stockyards, but...for some of these other guys who were killed, I can’t figure out what Dr. Scratch would want to do with their companies. The textile factory has nothing to do with the railroads or the stockyards, and neither does the pharmaceutical plant.  It’s unusual. It breaks the pattern of Dr. Scratch’s actions.”

Jane processed the information, trying to keep up and make connections between the pieces of the puzzle they had discovered over the past few weeks.  “So there may be two missing links,” she said.  “The actual murderer, and the motive.”

“Basically,” Terezi said with a nod.  “We have part of the motive, but not all of it.”

“Well, I guess that’s all fine,” Jane said, sighing.  “Since we don’t have enough evidence to do anything yet, especially if this Dr. Scratch character has as much clout as you say he does.”

“Exactly,” Terezi replied. “I’m going to do some more sneaking around to see what I can find.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jane asked.

“Besides letting us stay here?”

“Well, yes, that was a given,” Jane said.  “I’m not going to let you sleep on the streets!”

“Oh, good,” Terezi said with a grin.  She leaned around the corner and called to Karkat and Kanaya, “Get comfy, ‘cause we’re staying!”

“What, _here_?” Karkat asked, and his head poked around the corner, incredulity written across his face.

“Obviously!” Terezi said. Kanaya walked past Karkat, looking up the stairs uncertainly as Jane’s butler walked down to join them.

“There’s no way!” Karkat said. “ _Here_?”

“Miss Crocker, is it?” Kanaya asked, turning to Jane.

“Yes,” Jane replied.

“Perhaps there’s some service we can provide to repay you for your kindness?”

“Don’t work for her!” Terezi cut in.  “This is karma.”

“Karma?” Jane repeated with indignation.

“Okay, just so we’re clear, there is _no fucking way_ I can make it to the slaughterhouses from here every day fast enough to do any actual work. Twelve hours of my day would be spent fucking _walking_ ,” Karkat said. “So if we’re negotiating rent, I want everyone here to know that I’m functionally useless, since I’m apparently going to lose my job on top of every other fucking thing that’s going on.”

“My job is in jeopardy as well,” Kanaya said.  “But I can help with the housework if need be.  I’m especially adapt at sewing, if you need anything to be mended.”

“Oh!  Yes, I forgot to say, your dress the other day was stunning, and you look wonderful today as well!” Jane said.  “Terezi told me that you sew all your own outfits. You have an impressive skill!”

“There you go!” Terezi said. “Kanaya can be your own personal seamstress, and the rest of us will live off her labor.”

“Um...” Kanaya said.

“Why don’t you get a job for once?” Karkat snapped at Terezi.

“I have a job, and it’s called justice!”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to a new seamstress!” Jane interrupted before Karkat could retort. “But I don’t think it’s necessary if you’re only staying here temporarily.  I am partially responsible for this, after all!”

“You are?” Karkat asked, but Terezi interrupted before Jane could reply.

“I think this is a good opportunity for you, Kanaya,” she said, slapping her jovially on the back. “Crocker here is the granddaughter of a duchess.  Think about all the ways you could kickstart a real career by designing outfits for her! Isn’t that right, Janey?”

“You’re the granddaughter of a duchess?!” Karkat asked, his voice jumping up a couple notes.

“Karkat, quit asking questions!  It’s rude.”

“You expect me to stay in some strange aristocratic cross-dressing detective’s house without asking any questions?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck that!”

“Maybe we should wait for questions until after you’ve been shown to the guest bedrooms,” Jane broke in hastily. 

“And the bathroom,” Terezi said.  “I bet Crocker here has an actual heated _bath_.”

She wagged her eyebrows at Karkat, who paused long enough to betray the sharp increase in his interest. “Perhaps we can talk after dinner?” Jane offered, beginning to understand Terezi’s tactics. Karkat’s eyes flashed to hers, and he appraised her face.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Probably the most delicious food you’ll ever eat in your whole life!” Terezi said.  “So quit wasting time and go get your stuff.”

Karkat and Kanaya both slipped into the other room without another word of complaint and reappeared seconds later, holding their small number of possessions in their arms. Jane looked over to her butler, who nodded and gestured up the stairs.  “This way, please,” he said.  Karkat and Kanaya exchanged glances and trailed after him, stiff but doubtlessly curious.  Jane looked over at Terezi.

“Will you...need any special accommodations?” Jane asked.  Terezi released a barking laugh.

“I’ll have the floor plan memorized in a day,” she said.  “Don’t mind me if you catch me wandering around whacking things.  And don’t move anything.”

“I can manage that,” Jane said with a nod.  “I’ll make sure to tell John as well.”

“Oh, yeah, you live with your brother,” Terezi said.  She paused and smirked.  “Well, he’s in for a surprise!”

“I’m sure he won’t mind,” Jane said.  “I just hope my grandmother doesn’t stop by!  I’m afraid I may have to pass you all off as new servants.”

Terezi shrugged. “So call us servants. Maybe you could put Karkat to work while you’re at it.  He could work in the kitchen or something.  Or as a really shitty guard.”

“Well...we’ll see,” Jane replied with a small sigh.  “This is more than I bargained for, to tell the truth.  I need some time to think.”

“Good luck thinking with us around,” Terezi said, laughing with the sharp cackle that grated on Jane’s nerves.

“Aren’t you going to take your things to your room as well?” Jane asked with a small grimace.

“I need help carrying my things.”

“Oh.  Well then, we’ll wait for my butler to come back down.” Jane paused and glanced around the corner into the parlor, examining the suitcases and bags that still remained.  “Are those the notes you chose to bring?” she asked.

“Sure are! I had Karkat help me carry them here.  If he didn’t complain so much, I would’ve brought more!”

Jane stayed silent for a moment, imagining the three newly homeless vagabonds carrying their possessions through Old Town and across New Town to her house.  She released another sigh.  “What do you think will happen to the rest of your library?” she asked.

She looked back at Terezi, who frowned.  “If we don’t solve this case, it’s gone for good,” she said.  “Even if we do solve it, we’re probably not moving back in. Revenge has a special place in Old Town.  So. It was nice while it lasted.”

Jane studied Terezi’s face, searching for some tick or twitch to give away the extent of her disappointment, knowing that it must run deep.  But Terezi’s face remained disciplined and heroic, as though she could feel Jane’s eyes on her.  Differing emotions battled for Jane’s attention, and she dropped her eyes to the floor, considering several options before fixating on one, despite the ways in which she found it disagreeable.  Restraining a grimace, she straightened her back and said, “I’ll send a car to pick up the rest of your library.  _But_ that doesn’t mean I intend to keep it here forever, buster, so don’t get any funny ideas! I can’t really do anything about the floor, though.”

Terezi’s eyebrows arched high above her red shades, and for a moment, she did not reply.  A slow smirk formed on her lips, a smirk with a different nuance than her usual wicked curl.  “If I didn’t know better, Crocker,” she said, “I’d say we were becoming real, bona fide partners!”

“I said don’t get any funny ideas!” Jane insisted.  “Our partnership is case-specific, even if you’re living in my house.” Even as she spoke, however, the conviction began to leak out of her voice.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry about the wait;;)

Never had Jane’s home felt so lively before Terezi’s roommates moved in, even when parties kept guests until the early hours of the morning.  Karkat’s voice was so loud and constant that it became a standard component of the house’s background noises, and John’s volume rose to meet his with such glee that Jane wondered how much he had actually been restraining himself for most of his life.  The ordinary sound of John practicing at the piano was often truncated by a messy crash in another part of the house and Karkat’s enraged screeching, followed by a rush of feet and a roar of delighted laughter.  Dave soon caught wind of the interesting new additions to Jane’s household, and he began to spend more time at their house, even going so far as to bring his work with him on occasion.  Terezi took well to both John and Dave, much to Jane’s surprise, and she was soon adding to the chaos with her own brand of mischief as well, which was far less surprising.  She was much better than anyone else at responding to John’s pranks and enacting revenge that managed to get under his skin.  Jane was happy to finally have someone with whom she could bond over these more infuriating aspects of Terezi’s character, as John was more than happy to fume with her when they had a rare moment alone.  Yet, despite Terezi’s apparent enjoyment of the house’s energy and company, she did not allow any of it to distract her. She was often gone for the entire day and almost always away after dusk.  Late in the afternoons, when Jane was preparing to accompany John to a social function of whatever sort, she sometimes caught sight of Terezi sneaking out of the house to do whatever it was she did late into the night, far later than Jane ever stayed awake.  She would always be back for breakfast, however, and if she had any news, she did not share it.

As for Jane, she could hardly hear herself think well enough to get anything done.  She was equal parts annoyed with and fond of the new vibrancy of her home; although her work required her to be focused and thorough, which was not easy with the shouting and the ruckus, she had never felt quite as companionable or full of warmth in her own dwelling. She was particularly fond of Kanaya, who often opted to avoid the more energetic areas of the house in favor for Jane’s company.  They sat together in Jane’s study while Jane brainstormed ways to occupy herself. Fortunately or unfortunately, she was at a loss for an appropriate course of action concerning her case and felt she had no recourse but to wait for Terezi to uncover some yet undiscovered piece of evidence, so she was not as distracted by her guests as she may have been had she had legitimate work to accomplish.  Instead, she set on the daunting task of organizing Terezi’s library and copying any particularly insightful information for her own use.

Terezi’s library very nearly dwarfed her own.  Jane decided to organize the material according to date and type, placing like with like, legal documents with legal documents, newspaper clippings with newspaper clippings, ledgers with ledgers.  Leafing through the content of these documents quickly became a chore that drained Jane’s patience within hours.  She was used to reading through reams of material without losing interest when she had a particular goal in mind, but her aimless meanderings through the confusing happenings of Old Town melted together until her eyes were skimming over words she did not actually read.  She was not familiar with most of the places or people to which the documents referred.  Her frustration eventually caused her to call over Lil’ Seb, whom she asked to draw her a map based on the one he had scanned off of Terezi’s floor. Kanaya helped her to place various locations and establishments on the map, which allowed her to guide her reading with more purpose.  Her attention span grew for the amount of time it took to understand the interconnectedness of various places, but without knowledge of the people behind the operations discussed in Terezi’s documents, she quickly grew bored again. Only when a name she knew appeared on a page did her interest rekindle, and she was careful to copy documents that were connected to anyone in New Town.

After several days of aimless reading, Jane finally tossed a ledger across the room with an exasperated groan.  “I’ll go insane if I read another line!” she said, flopping onto her back in a way that was doubtlessly unfit for a lady.   She was still surrounded by piles of texts.  Her brain felt as though it were filled with cotton, not quite succumbing to a full headache but unable to entertain any more busywork than she had already accomplished.  She sighed.  “I hope Terezi finds a new lead soon, or I may take up another case to pass the time!”

Kanaya paused her sewing to appraise Jane’s defeated form.  “If you don’t mind me asking,” she said, in a tentative tone of voice that suggested she had been wanting to ask for a while, “what is it you’re waiting for Terezi to find?  Did you not already have a lead?”

“Yes, well, we thought we did,” Jane replied.  “It isn’t enough to do anything with yet, however, and until we get more information, we’re stuck.  And since Terezi is the one with the connections, I’m afraid I’m perfectly useless.”

“Hmm,” Kanaya hummed. Her eyes shifted to the stacks of papers and booklets covering the floor and desk, waiting to be read. Although she seemed hesitant, Jane could read a thought forming in her expression.

“Do you have something in mind?” she asked.  She dared not be too hopeful, but after the days she had spent waiting for Terezi with no results, she was willing to entertain almost any suggestion, however simple. Kanaya worried at her lower lip for a fraction of a second longer.

“I may have something in mind,” she said, turning her attention back to Jane.  “I have read all of these documents to Terezi at some point in time or another—or most of them, at least.  The ones she’s gathered since we became roommates. Perhaps if you have a name, I can help you find information on the individual or group you’ve been looking into? It may not bring anything new to light, but perhaps something in these files might be useful.”

“Oh, well!” Jane said, sitting up. “That may actually be productive! There’s always the possibility that Terezi missed something, right?  After all, she can’t have _reread_ everything, with how busy she’s been gathering intel and the library moving and all that.  And she can’t possibly remember every little detail in these documents, right?”

“Maybe she can,” Kanaya said with a small tilt of her head.

“...Maybe,” Jane said. “But it’s worth a try! Do you remember coming across the name Dr. Scratch, or perhaps remember anything about the Felt?”

“Oh, certainly,” Kanaya said, and she put her sewing aside to stand.  Once on her feet, however, she hesitated, looking around the room at the copious amount of disorganized paper.  “It may take me a second to locate all the documents, if I can even remember them all...” she admitted.  Jane stood as well.

“Let me know if I can be of any assistance at all!” she said.

With Kanaya’s guidance, Jane located several ledgers, legal documents, and files on Dr. Scratch, with a few more notes and newspaper clippings on the Felt.  Tucked into the files were handwritten notes that Kanaya believed to have been written by Terezi’s mother before her execution. “She was a lot like Terezi, from what I’ve heard...which is admittedly not much,” Kanaya said as they spread the documents onto the floor.  “She was obsessed with uncovering injustice, and it got her killed. I haven’t read all of the notes myself.  Terezi had them before we moved in together.”

Jane paused to look over the sharp, scribbled cursive.  She let the knowledge settle into her mind that these words originated from the hand of a woman who clearly served as a crucial role model to Terezi, a woman who had died for the same passion that still drove Terezi into dangerous territory and situations to this day.  Her mind flashed to the night in the packing plant, replaying the memory of Terezi’s face and form as she responded with such collected composure to the gunman waiting around a corner to kill them.  Since that night, Jane had been obsessing over the almost practiced grace with which Terezi had dealt with the threat, worrying with both awe and fear over the secret details of Terezi’s past that had gifted her with the capacity to respond so skillfully to the situation.  Had Terezi nearly met her mother’s fate at some point in time due to her work?  Did she expect to?  Was their near-fatal encounter just one in a multitude of near-fatal encounters Terezi had experienced in her lifetime?  With these questions in mind, Jane picked up the handwritten notes first, compelled not by determination to pursue her case but by a more personal curiosity, as though she could learn something about Terezi’s mother from her handwriting and, by extension, something about Terezi.  Although she was reluctant to admit it, she wanted to feel the passion that carried Terezi through terrifying situations with such poise, but whether she wanted to reach the level of unflinching dedication that Terezi seemed to exude or simply to shake away the fears and anxiety that had begun to plague her, she could not say.

“What does it say?” Kanaya asked, leaning over her shoulder in a way that betrayed her own deep curiosity. Jane jumped slightly, realizing that she had not actually read the words she examined.  She refocused her mind and began to skim.

“This is from before the West Continental Railroad came into Dr. Scratch’s possession,” Jane realized, stating the fact out loud even as she began to pay more attention to the notes.  “How bizarre! I was under the impression that the railroads were all family owned and operated.”

“How did he take control of the railroad?” Kanaya asked.

“Hmm...” Jane said, but she was so absorbed that she could not process the question.  The document was not legitimate in that it was not notarized, excepting the fact that Terezi’s mother was a paralegal and perhaps licensed as a notary.  There was nothing to prove that any of the information it contained was fact, other than the credibility of the person who wrote it.  But Jane’s heartbeat quickened regardless. Her eyes skimmed faster, flitting over words that stirred something in her gut, an intuitive space within herself she rarely acknowledged when working.  Halfway down the document, she came to a halt over a phrase that jarred her mind with the force of a slap to the face.

“’The Order of the Cherubim?’” she read out loud.  She glanced at Kanaya over her shoulder, breath growing shallow with excitement. Kanaya’s eyes widened as she took in Jane’s expression.

“Is that important?” she asked.

“Yes!” Jane responded, turning back to the document.  She returned to the top and read it again, more thoroughly.  “The Order of the Cherubim was, apparently, a more public organization some decades ago—public in that they were actively seeking status as a bona fide religion and were attempting to find space for a temple of sorts. There was still quite a bit of secrecy, which is what Terezi’s mother seemed to be attempting to uncover and record here...and Dr. Scratch was involved with them, which is why she was collecting information on him!  He was a private figure, not publically affiliated with the Order except in cases of legal work, but in truth he was the second in command to the Order’s...Lord of Time?  The leader of the organization.  Apparently our Dr. Scratch is a bright businessman with schooling in law, a graduate from the university, funded largely by the cult’s leader...”

Jane continued to read as she talked until she reached the end of the document.  She paused.  “Is that all?” she asked, flipping over the pages.  Although the notes seemed to be complete with regards to Dr. Scratch, it was apparent that more notes were meant to accompany them and had been filed somewhere else, perhaps with other information that was relevant by topic.  “Kanaya, we need to find the rest of Terezi’s mother’s notes!”

Kanaya immediately stood and began to flit around the room, opening booklets, leafing through pages, and restacking papers, and Jane scrambled to join her.  Every document bearing Terezi’s mother’s handwriting was collected and put aside to be reorganized.  As Kanaya continued the search, Jane sat down and began to skim the documents, searching through the myriad of information for the notes that pertained to their current concerns.  Many seemed to be focused on other, unrelated cases, but Jane was surprised by the number of documents she did find that were directly related to the Order of the Cherubim.

“This is...Lord English!” she said, uncovering a particularly promising document.  “He’s the Lord of Time!  Wow, I probably should have guessed as much. Of course he would call himself the Lord of Time...what an arrogant boob.”  She sat back to read as Kanaya brought her more papers, which she began to organize according to the system Jane had haphazardly constructed. Jane cycled through moments of breathlessness and over-excitement, soaking the information into her mind as it fired connections.  “Lord English spent most of his fortune on the Order,” she said.  “He put down amazing sums of money for the Order’s temple, which...would have been in a section of Old Town, outside of the slums towards the river.  Have you heard of anything of the sort?”  She turned to Kanaya, who shook her head.

“I haven’t heard anything about this Order,” she said.

“What happened?” Jane asked, picking up another set of papers.  “Why did they just disappear?  Well, from the public eye, at least.  They’re apparently still...”  She paused as her eyes skimmed over a rather more unsavory line of information.  She drew in a breath.  “Ah, well, that would be why, then!”

“Why?” Kanaya asked, leaning to read over Jane’s shoulder again.

“Terezi’s mother infiltrated one of the Order’s ritual ceremonies and found evidence of illegal activity of the...more diabolical sort.  And if I’m guessing right, she made her findings public!  But...”

Jane rummaged through more of the notes, searching for some more conclusive piece of information on the history of the Order’s fall.  She frowned, finding little.  “The temple was demolished by the city some months after these documents were written,” she said, noting a newspaper clipping that was tucked in with the notes. “Judging by the way things are now, I’m going to guess that Dr. Scratch was not found guilty of anything, or even known to be associated with the Order publically.  And Lord English certainly hasn’t suffered any blows because of—well, besides having no money and being essentially exiled from the peerage, that is.  But...if Terezi’s mother was able to bring the Order to court over its illegal activities, why wouldn’t she have also taken down Lord English and Dr. Scratch?”

“Perhaps they were too powerful?” Kanaya offered.  Jane pursed her lips and mulled over the possibility.  She recalled what Terezi said about the corruption in the New Town legal system.

“It strikes me as odd that anyone would go out of their way to help Lord English, though,” she said. “He really is an ass.”

“Maybe...she didn’t have enough evidence?”

Jane tilted her head in acquiescence.  “That would have been more likely.  And if their followers were loyal to them, it’s likely they wouldn’t rat them out.” With little other information to construct a more complete picture of the problem, Jane stared down at the notes, thinking.  She turned her attention back to the pile of information they had gathered about Dr. Scratch. “And in the next document we have about him, he’s already got that railroad,” she said, musing. “And the Felt. And now he’s orchestrating the murders of businessmen in New Town.  What’s the connection?”

“Are you certain there is a connection?” Kanaya asked.

“I...no?” Jane said, but she felt an itch bite at the back of her mind and a ripple of disquiet slide through her body.  She was a practical woman.  She relied on facts to make her case, and she didn’t believe in the power of intuition to guide reason.  Yet, she felt herself drawn to the handwritten notes of a dead woman she had never met, lacking in notarization or any form of legitimacy, which compelled her to believe that everything she had read was connected to the murders in New Town. For a second, her mind recalled the image printed onto the Moon tarot card and Rose Lalonde’s words to trust her intuition, as hard as that might be for her.  She shook her head.  “Argh,” she groaned, dropping her head into her hands. “This case is going to be the death of me.”

But before she could give herself much more of a headache, her mind rewound to Rose Lalonde. Jane reminded herself that Rose Lalonde knew things no one else knew about the secret societies in Midnight City, including the Order of the Cherubim, and that she had been prudent enough to send Jane to Lord English.  If anyone could help her understand what she was missing, surely Rose Lalonde could, Jane reasoned.  She stood.

“I need to go on a visit,” she said, moving towards the door.

“Should I tell Terezi about what we found?” Kanaya asked.  Jane stopped abruptly.

“Drat!” she said, turning back towards Kanaya with a scowl.  “I suppose that would be a good thing to do, wouldn’t it? She may have something to add, after all.  But...confound it, I never know where she is anymore!”

“Usually when she’s gone all day, she comes back for dinner before going out again,” Kanaya said.

“Does she?”

“Yes, but you’re usually gone with John by then.”

“Well...how late will that be, do you think?”

“Usually she comes at dusk and leaves again once it’s dark.”

“Hmm,” Jane said, thinking. “But if I wait for Terezi, it will be too late to see Rose today...I suppose I could wait until tomorrow, but...”  She released a frustrated sigh.

“Rose?” Kanaya said, perking up.  “Not as in Rose Lalonde?”

“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “I hadn’t realized you were acquainted.”

“We met through Roxy,” Kanaya explained.  “If it’s Rose you intend to visit, I’m sure she won’t mind a late call.  She receives clients into the evening on most days. If you like, I can go ahead and warn her to expect you so that she can make time for you.”

“You’d do that?” Jane asked, and her mood lifted as Kanaya stood.

“I’d be happy to,” Kanaya said with a kind smile.  “Is there anything you’d like me to tell her now?”

“If you want to let her know what we just found about the Order of the Cherubim, that would be wonderful!” Jane said.  “You can take the hansom cab, if you want.”

“I’ll be fine walking,” Kanaya said.  “It’s a nice day anyway.”

“Thank you,” Jane said sincerely.

“It’s no problem. Good luck finding more information.”


	12. Chapter 12

Jane spent the afternoon trying not to watch the sunlight slide across the floor as she waited for night to fall and herald Terezi’s return.  Her mind sought to fray her nerves by interspersing her winding, fruitless musings with doubts that Terezi would not come home at all before the next morning, and although she knew that it would cost her nothing to wait until the next day to follow the lead she now had, she was not used to waiting for someone else to advance a case.  She took to pacing up and down the halls until John convinced her to help him harass Karkat. With her new task to distract her, she spent the rest of the afternoon hiding around corners and sounding a rubber duck every time Karkat tried to speak a word, which she found to be immeasurably gratifying.

Her fun came to a close when John left for the night to attend a small party with distant relatives. She had planned to go, but she instead left him with instructions to deter all questions about her absence. After apologizing profusely and with some sincerity to Karkat, she settled in to wait for dinner, which she took in the kitchen with Karkat and her servants.  Terezi did not come.

“Is she going to stay out all night?” she asked, taking up her pacing again.

“Who knows?” Karkat said. “She’s probably crawling through the belly of the criminal underworld with a band of thugs who’d just as soon stab her in the back as they would protect her.”  The two of them remained in the kitchen as most of the household embarked on their nightly chores.

“But Kanaya said she would be home for dinner,” Jane said with a frown.

“Dinner could happen at any time between five and midnight for her.  Hell, I’ve seen her sneak in at two in the fucking morning and call half a jar of applesauce ‘dinner.’  Does that sound like a fucking dinner to you?”

“No,” Jane said with a sigh. She stopped pacing and mussed her hair.  “Ugh, she’s going to drive me insane!”

“I would’ve warned you not to get wrapped up in her flighty horseshit, but looks like you’re too deep to turn back.  Good fucking luck.”

Jane released an explosive sigh and fell into the uncomfortable wooden chair next to Karkat. “If I don’t do something while I wait, I might pop a blood vessel,” she said.  She glanced at him.  “How do you usually occupy yourself at night once we’ve left?”

Karkat’s pinched face contorted into a frustrated grimace.  “Kanaya reads to me,” he said.

“Oh,” Jane said. “She’s not here.”

“Oh, is she not? I hadn’t noticed!”

“So you have nothing to do either, huh?”

“Pretty fucking much! I guess I could, I don’t know, clean or do some other mindless chore, but your army of cheerful house staff has that pretty well covered.  Or I could just go to bed.”

“It’s hardly nine!”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?  Learn how to play the piano?”

As the only member of the house left to keep her company, Jane preferred that Karkat not leave her alone with her agitated anticipation.  She pursed her lips and said, “I could read to you, if you like.”

Karkat stared at her all of three seconds before going to fetch his novella.

Two hours passed in which Karkat’s rapt interest and active engagement drew Jane into the narrative of his novella, despite its questionable quality and reliance on melodrama. Although Jane’s kitchen had recently been renovated to accommodate electric lighting shortly after it had become available to the general public, she still preferred to use the soft light of an oil lamp for pleasure reading, and the kitchen was dark but cozy as the fire turned to coals in the stone hearth.  She almost didn’t notice when the backdoor of the kitchen opened with a click and Terezi stole soundlessly inside.  Her shadowed figure caught Jane’s eye as she moved up the single step inside.

“Terezi!” Jane said, immediately putting the novella down, much to Karkat’s disappointment.

“Funny finding you in the kitchen,” Terezi said, picking a path to the pantry, from which she extracted a jar of pickles, a chunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread.  “I didn’t think you knew where it was.”

“Why wouldn’t I know where my own kitchen is?” Jane asked.

“Don’t they bring all your meals to your bed?”

“Oh, har har! I’ll have you know that baking is a hobby of mine,” Jane said, but she moved to join her nonetheless. “That aside, I have something important to discuss with you!”

“I guess I’ll just head to bed then,” Karkat grumbled.  He picked up his novella and carefully marked the page. 

“You’re up late!” Terezi remarked.  “Is Jane that good of a storyteller?”

“Hmm?” Jane asked, and in the light of the oil lamp, she noticed Karkat’s face color slightly.

“She’s good at reading the dialogue and has a good grasp of tone,” he said.

“How sophisticated,” Terezi said with a grin.

Karkat looked as though he wanted to respond with some kind of retort, and although Jane couldn’t see what reason he had to form a retort in the first place, she had seen Karkat and Terezi interact enough times to know that she didn’t want them to begin a volley of repartee at this particular moment.  She interrupted him hastily.  “Perhaps we can finish it later!  That would be fine, wouldn’t it?” 

Karkat frowned, but he seemed to understand her intentions.  “Have fun with your murder case,” he said with a small wave as he turned towards the door.  Terezi snickered as his footsteps traced his path through the house.

“You must’ve been waiting pretty impatiently for me to have him give up that easily!” she said, turning to Jane.  “Just how important is this thing you want to say?”

“Kanaya and I found some of your mother’s notes,” Jane said, “and we found a connection between Dr. Scratch and Lord English!”

Terezi’s face fell blank. “My mother’s notes?” she repeated.

“Yes!  I hope you don’t mind.”

For a moment, Terezi stayed silent, her brow furrowed.  “What would my mother have to say about Dr. Scratch?”

Jane‘s face fell to mirror Terezi’s.  “Well...didn’t you read them?”

“I haven’t read those notes since my accident,” she said, gesturing vaguely towards her eyes. “I only remember details from the case that killed her.”

“Oh,” Jane said. She cleared her throat. “So, then, this wasn’t that case, I’m guessing?”

“Nice deduction skills, Crocker!  You should become a detective.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jane said, but the jab helped her to dispel her discomfort.  “Anyway, your mother was looking into the Order of the Cherubim quite a while back and found that Dr. Scratch was closely affiliated to Lord English!”

“And?” Terezi asked.

“...’And’?” Jane echoed. “And what?”  Terezi sighed through her nose.

“What does that have to do with our current case?”

“Well—!  I’m not entirely sure yet.  But doesn’t it sound suspicious?  I want you to accompany me to Rose Lalonde’s home to gather more information on the matter.”

“What, _now_?”

“Yes, now!”

“Can’t,” Terezi said. She pulled a cheese knife from a drawer and began to make herself a cheese and pickle sandwich. If it weren’t for their current conversation, Jane might’ve expressed disgust for Terezi’s choice of meal, but she was far too preoccupied to bother.

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I’ve found out that Dr. Scratch is at the head of a complicated money laundering scheme, which isn’t surprising, but I don’t know where a lot of the money is going.  It’s not invested into the railroads or any of the other companies he’s been gathering.  I’m trying to track it down.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing lately?” Jane asked, and she wasn’t able to keep the surprise out of her voice, nor her general sense of admiration.

“Some of us are good at our jobs,” Terezi responded drily.

“Oh, please!” Jane snapped. She barely caught Terezi smirk before she took a bite of her sandwich.  Her irritation spiked.  “I’ve been doing things, too.  I really think I may have a lead here!  Especially if Dr. Scratch has been sending laundered money to unknown sources.  Think about it...Lord English spent most of his family’s fortune on the Order of the Cherubim _and_ he funded Dr. Scratch’s education, so this gathering of assets and moving money behind the scenes, it could all point to some grand scheme between the two of them! They could be trying to revive the Order.”

“The Order of the Cherubim is barely alive,” Terezi said with her mouth still full.  “Do you really think someone like Dr. Scratch would even still care?  Lord English is a high society nobody and the Doc is in a war with the Midnight Crew right now. If I were to bet on it, I’d say the money is going to that conflict, not some almost dead secret society.”

“I just...I have this _feeling_ , okay!”

“Oh, a _feeling_.  Yep, okay, you’ve convinced me.”

“Will you please just come with me this one night so I can at least feel somewhat useful?” Jane asked with exasperation.

Terezi swallowed, and a grimace appeared on her lips.  “Crocker, why’s it feel like you’re asking me to hold your hand through this case now?”

“Because you’re the one with the connections and the street smarts!  If we learn anything from this, you’re the one who needs to apply it, so I need you to be around to hear it and brainstorm with me! How’s that sound, buster?”

Terezi groaned and took another bite of her sandwich.  Jane waited for her to reply.  “Fine,” she said through the food in her mouth.  “But I’m only wasting a night on it.”  She shoved the rest of the sandwich into her mouth and nodded to the door.  Jane followed her outside into the lukewarm night.

Many of the electric streetlamps were extinguished this late, and the few that were still lit along the avenues were dimmed to respect the sleeping inhabitants of New Town. Jane preferred not to venture out this close to midnight, but she had done so enough times to dispel any anxiety the shadows may have produced in a less seasoned sneak.  Terezi, of course, did not mind.  Jane led the way to the Main Street bridge, her mind flashing to the first night she had crossed it into Old Town with Tavros. She wondered briefly if he was out and about as well, collecting bodies from the Undertaker.  She decided she did not want to know either way.

As they neared the bridge, Jane recognized the outline of a large, covered cart silhouetted against the greenish gleam produced by the gas lamps across the river. The wooden structure was tucked away off the main thoroughfare, resting in the shadow of the looming guard tower against the river’s banister.  Beside it, barely recognizable in the dark, were two figures. One was speaking. The other was merely gesturing with his hands.  Jane slowed down, putting a hand gently on Terezi’s arm to warn her of the change in pace. The men hadn’t heard them yet. As she watched, the taller of the two slipped his arm around the other, who ducked beneath the arm and out into the light.

Jane stopped walking and drew into the shadows of the canopy of a closed shop, pulling Terezi with her.

“What?” Terezi asked, but she had enough sense to whisper.

“The clown,” Jane hissed. “The elixir clown.” In the light, he was unmistakable, with his painted face and wild hair, but unlike the other times Jane had seen him, he seemed agitated.  The expression on his face arrested Jane’s heart for a beat.  Something was amiss.

“Who, Gamzee?” Terezi asked. Jane was too distracted to answer by the movement of the other figure, who stepped out into the light with his hands held up in pacification.  Jane suppressed a gasp.  Lord English’s uncanny manservant seemed much more sinister in the faint glow of the electric lampposts, and his sewn mouth was turned down in a small frown. He approached Gamzee slowly, eyes wide and white.

“Just shut your motherfuckin’ mouth!” Gamzee snapped, loudly enough for both Jane and Terezi to hear. Jane felt Terezi grow tense beside her.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Jane said, just as quietly.  “But...that man, he’s with Lord English.”

“Who, Gamzee?”

“No, the other guy. He’s...his mouth is sewn shut, so I don’t know what, um, Gamzee means by...”

Jane’s words died as Caliborn’s manservant’s hands began to move in graceful pattern, weaving flowing shapes into the air with the liquid fluidity of water.  The movement was mesmerizing, so much so that Jane could not compel herself to stop staring.  Her jaw went slack.  Vaguely, she noticed Gamzee lift his hand heavily to his head and murmur some indecipherable words.  The manservant’s hands kept moving.  Jane felt as though she were drifting to sleep, but the world swirled around her, as if in a dream.  She felt the drunken sensation of movement, but did not know where she was going.  Through the fog in her mind, she realized something was wrong.

A sharp slap brought her to her senses.  She was no longer beneath the canopy of a shop but in a narrow alleyway, lying on her back. Terezi squatted beside her, frowning deeply.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

After several beats of her hammering heart, during which a dozen different thought surfaced in her mind and connected, Jane bolted upright.  “That—that man!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “That man!  Gamzee!  He’s—where are they?”

“He went towards the university,” Terezi said.  “You started heading that way, too.  What the hell is going on, Crocker?”

Jane turned towards Terezi and grabbed both of her arms.  “The man who was with Gamzee is Lord English’s manservant.  I saw him when I went to call!”

“And?” Terezi asked, her frown deepening.

“And he just—damn it, I hate to say it, but I think he just hypnotized us!”

Terezi’s frown turned into a grimace.  “Hypnotized, like...?”

“Yes, like that exactly! This is the missing piece! Hypnotism!  And Lord English and his lackeys are hypnotists—I was right, they _are_ working with Dr. Scratch!” Jane released her grip on Terezi and rushed to the end of the alleyway.  The squeaking of the cart could be heard slowly trailing down the bridge.  She turned back to Terezi.  “Terezi, I need you to go and catch the guy pushing the cart!  I...I have to follow Gamzee.”

“Why can’t I follow Gamzee and you catch the guy with the cart?” Terezi asked, poking her head out of the alley to listen.

“Because...you’re blind?”

“Hmph,” Terezi said, but she didn’t argue the point any further.  Wordlessly, she slipped out of the alley, and Jane saw the glint of her blade emerging from her walking stick as she darted past a lamppost. Jane likewise drew her pistol and set off towards the university.

Her feet padded softly on the cobblestones as she darted through the central square, all her senses focused on recognizing other signs of life.  No one else in the world seemed to be awake at this late hour, especially with the shops closed and the government buildings dark. The grandiose Romanesque edifices seemed even larger and more severe than they did in the light of day. Jane ran beneath them, pausing in their shadows to listen and moving on when she heard nothing. She skirted the residential areas leading towards the university, scanning each for signs of movement. She halted when she finally saw a figure slinking along the fence of a darkened street.  With a deepening sense of dread, she watched him slip down another avenue.  She recognized it as Dirk’s.

Gun raised, she picked up her pace, running as fast as she dared without making too much noise. She passed the bakery on the corner of Dirk’s street.  Several buildings down, the figure knelt at Dirk’s door.

“Stop!” Jane shouted, breaking into a full run.  He did not seem to hear her, and the door clicked open.  She lifted her gun and fired once.  The bullet splintered the doorframe just above Gamzee’s head, and she saw the whites of his glossy eyes turn towards her as he slipped into the townhouse. She realized with a terrified seizing in her gut that he could not recognize her through the fog clouding his mind.  If she had not felt it herself, she would not have believed it.  That she did believe it, however, made it all the more horrifying for her, for she realized that the threat of harm alone would not stop him. She sprinted towards the house, wishing that she had had the sense to bring Lil’ Seb this time.

A light blazed to life in the upper window of Dirk’s townhouse, and from inside, she could hear a voice rise sharply in volume.  A commotion broke out, audible even as she rounded the fence outside. Something crashed to the floor above her as she passed through the shattered doorframe.  She slammed the door shut behind her and raised her gun.  Only the scattered light from the second floor and the dim glow from a faraway lamppost filtering through the window illuminated the room, and she moved to the stairs, from which she could hear the jarring sound of tearing fabric, flesh hitting flesh, and pained grunting.  Before she could bound up to the second floor, a body came tumbling down the stairs, and she leaped back with a yelp of surprise.

In the darkness, all she could make out was a wild mess of hair.  She scrambled around the perimeter of the room, her gun held up shakily in front of her, as the man jumped nimbly to his feet.  In his hands, the metallic gleam of a long, thin blade reflected the meager light from the window, and his dulled eyes seemed to belong to a different body than the one posed like a seasoned assassin. Jane hesitated with her finger on the trigger of her gun.  The pounding of footsteps rushing down the stairs startled her heart into her throat.

“Watch out!” she shouted as Gamzee leapt forward, and for a moment, his body colliding with Dirk’s was visible in the light from the second floor.  Jane gasped as Dirk flung Gamzee over his shoulder and fell forward himself with the force of the momentum, and they became a mass of limbs struggling on the floor.  Dark, grotesque smears of blood followed them as they jolted across the room, closer to Jane.  She dared not fire her gun.  In a wrenching motion, Gamzee flipped Dirk over and straddled him, knife poised to kill, and Dirk barely managed to catch his plunging wrist before the blade slashed across his throat.  Heart pounding wildly in her chest, Jane backed up into a table and felt for something to throw. Her hand fell upon a metal cylinder, perhaps the limb of a robot, and she chucked it across the room. It hit Gamzee in the back with a dull thud, but he didn’t so much as flinch.  All his weight was pressed forward into the hand inching closer to Dirk’s throat.  Jane scrambled for another robotic part, something dense and solid, and she chucked it with all her might.  This time, it collided with the back of Gamzee’s head with a hard crack.  The knife fell from his hands, and he slumped forward. Dirk pushed him off and rolled away, panting.  A vicious gash on his arm bled profusely onto the floor.

Jane’s gun clattered to the floor, and she dropped to her knees.  “Is he...?” she asked.  Dirk glanced at her and back at Gamzee.  With a swift kick, he knocked the knife to the other side of the room and scooted closer.  He pressed his fingers against Gamzee’s neck.

“Alive,” he said. “But he’s probably going to have a bitch of a headache in the morning.”

Jane breathed a deep sigh of relief.  “Good,” she said. “He wasn’t himself. I would’ve felt terrible if I had killed him.”  She thought back to the man with the blue hat she had shot in the packing plant and felt a chill shudder down her body.  The sensation settled in her gut, but, thankfully, she did not feel as though she would become sick.

“Jane,” Dirk said, his voice stern.  Jane turned his attention to him.  “What the hell have you been doing?”

“I don’t want to hear any lectures from you, buster.  I just saved your life!” she said.  He stayed silent for a moment, but accepted her statement with a nod.

“Fair enough.”


	13. Chapter 13

Jane slumped into her townhouse as the sun set behind the dome of the St. Calliope Cathedral. She had spent the majority of the day in court, as she had done for the past several days, presenting evidence and acting as a chief witness for the prosecution against Lord English and Dr. Scratch.  Months had passed since Kurloz, Lord English’s manservant, and Gamzee were arrested, during which Jane had personally invested herself in the police’s activities regarding the case, ensuring that search warrants were gotten, arrests were made, and witnesses were found to testify against the two powerful figures. She made the case as public as legally possible in order to hold the police force accountable and combat any possible corruption that would hinder its proceedings.  Terezi continued to gather evidence in her own way. The two of them watched Dr. Scratch’s economic empire collapse, with all the trepidation one might feel when witnessing the fiery destruction of a mammoth zeppelin floating above a city, on which its disastrous fall is inevitable.  Old Town, though it would ultimately benefit from Dr. Scratch’s removal, suffered in the time it took for other superpowers and minor sharks to fill the void he left.  Terezi recorded it all, and Jane had no recourse but to listen and watch.  It was the nature of Old Town, to shift and suffer, until greater changes were made to its underlying structure.  Jane knew this as a fact, although she hated to accept its veracity.

She paused at the bottom of her stairway.  She could hear cheerful voices making merry in the music room, interspersed with the tinny din of Dave’s music boxes.  Her mind could not be made whether she felt more drawn to socialize or to retire to her room for some rest.  She looked up the darkening stairwell, which promised her the peace of solitude but only as much comfort as solitude could offer.  She turned away and made for the music room.

“Jane, you’re home!” Jade exclaimed as she rounded the corner.  Jane paused, startled by the number of faces that turned to greet her.

“Dirk, you’re here, too?” she asked. He and Tavros sat near Dave, who was trying to prevent John and Jade from winding up all of his music boxes at once, unaware that Dirk was discreetly winding up another two on his other side. Karkat and Terezi were also present, but Kanaya was not.  She had been out to visit Rose more often lately.

“How did it go?” Terezi asked before Dirk could answer.  Everyone fell silent in anticipation for Jane’s response.

“It went well,” Jane said. “All of the testimony and evidence points towards Lord English and Dr. Scratch using hypnotism and murder as a means to acquire assets for their devious plots, on top of which we have a number of laundering and illegal monopoly charges, and I’m almost positive we have the jury convinced.  Tomorrow we’ll have our verdict.”

“That’s great news!” Jade said. “And then it’ll be case closed?”

“Yes, hopefully!”

“About time!” Karkat said. “We can finally get these assholes to go home to their country mansions.”

“Not likely,” Terezi said.

“I hate to break it to you both,” John said, “but this is actually my house.”

Jade and John had both, for the first time in their lives, opted to stay behind after social season came to a close.  They both cited their various research and inventions as an excuse, but it was clear to everyone that they had become ensnared by the activity and intrigue now central to Jane’s home.  Jane was thankful for all the guest rooms that had sat empty for so many years in her townhouse, because she suspected it would only be a matter of time before Jade began sneaking her major possessions over to move in.  She accepted the additions to her yearlong household with mixed feelings of reluctance and gratitude.

“What about you two?” Dave asked, giving up on his battle for order in his music and turning instead to address Karkat and Terezi.  “Are you going to stay here forever, or are you gonna hop ship now that you’re not on the mafia’s shit list?”

“We’re still on the mafia’s shit list,” Terezi replied.  “They’re just going to be in jail now.”

“But the answer is no, we’re not staying here forever,” Karkat said.

“You’re not?” Jane asked with a note of surprise.

“Why, do you want us to?” Terezi responded, flashing her a wicked grin.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I don’t know what she has planned,” Karkat said, nodding towards Terezi, “but someone has to keep tabs on Gamzee when he gets out of the loony bin.  We leave his clown ass alone for two seconds and he gets brainwashed into slashing throats for a fucking underground murder society!”

“Is that what happened to the clown?” Dirk asked, frowning.

“Yes,” Jane said. “It took us a bit to convince the court that he was not sound of mind when he was committing the crimes, but he’s been getting help in the asylum outside of the city.”

“ _Hopefully_ getting help,” Terezi said.  “Who knows what they do in those places?”

“Yes, well...apparently he had a number of preexisting mental issues that made him more susceptible to hypnotism than the average person, so regardless, someone should probably address them.”

Karkat groaned. “Don’t talk about it! It gives me a headache.”

“Well, whatever,” Terezi said. “You can do what you want, but I’m not moving back in with him.  I learned my lesson.”

Karkat released a heavy, pointed sigh.  “Yeah.” Jane and Dirk exchanged glances, and a beat of uncertain silence passed through the room.

“So, Terezi...what are you going to do?” John asked.

“I never said I was moving out,” she replied with a shrug.

“Now, wait a minute,” Jane said, frowning.  “You said the other day that you were going to begin looking for your own place soon!”

“Yeah, about that...I changed my mind.”

“You _what_?”

“Look, I was beginning to have my doubts about you, Crocker, but you really pulled through at the end with this case,” Terezi said.  “You’ve got clout with the police and enough power to throw around, and I need a little bit of that.  So I’m going to set up base here and get some real work done.  Besides, you have my library.”

Jane took a moment to find her voice.  “When was all of this decided?” she sputtered.

“What do you mean? We’re partners, right?”

Terezi’s sharp grin no longer fazed Jane.  She pursed her lips in irritation, but nonetheless, she considered the statement. Yes, they were partners. Terezi proved herself to be an invaluable companion, and her library proved likewise to be a useful resource.  Her presence in Jane’s household was not as terribly cumbersome as she had thought it would be. She glanced at John with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s your house,” John said with a shrug.

“You just fucking said it was your house, numbskull,” Karkat said.

“Well, it’s more Jane’s house than my house, but it’s still my house.”

“Fine,” Jane said before John could rile Karkat up.  “But we’d better get a lot of work done!”

“Not a problem,” Terezi said with a nefarious cackle.

In years before, once the social season came to an end, Jane could expect to close her doors and spend the remainder of the year in relative isolation, daring to hope for only the occasional visit from Dirk.  Now, as she called for dinner to be made and the dining room prepared for her guests, she dared to hope for much more.  Her house, once lonely, was now lively.

She was not, however, entertaining delusions of peace or comfort.  Her ignorance of the corruption in her society had been irrevocably sundered, and she would never be able to ignore the rot festering beneath the surface of the gilded scales of justice.  Dr. Scratch and Lord English had been removed from their positions of power, but many more like them still existed, sucking like parasites on the lifeblood of Old Town.  They, too, would be replaced should they be removed if nothing were done to change the deeply rooted problems paving their path. Jane’s work had only just begun, but, although she had an unimaginable amount of painful, dangerous work ahead of her, she felt, sitting next to Terezi at her dining table, that she might actually have the support and resources to make a difference in a world she once failed so completely to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter for this work! There may be more fics in the future for the gildedstuck universe, however, so keep a look out and stay hopeful.


End file.
